Not long ago I watched a presentation by Naomi Klein where she talked about the "Shock Doctrine," whereas entrenched powers (the real power brokers behind the veneer of democratic government) exploit disastrous events in order to shock people into accepting the imposition of oppressive (security and and economic) policies.
I remember one comment she made during the presentation; she mentioned that there may come a time when the fear of speaking out against oppression or exposing its imposition may make her stop, if she felt she was putting herself in danger.
As I research the issue of the rapidly rising police state, I'm beginning to fully understand what she meant when she made that comment.
Another thing I'm beginning to realize is that there will never be another violent revolution in the United States. Those who value order and stability should be very glad.
The imposition of the Police State is so complete, and the "total information awareness" surveillance system so ubiquitous, that any nascent militant resistance movement would be immediately squashed. So again, no need to worry about that ever again...
On November 29th I wrote a diary about the Department of Homeland Security's push to set up a "Federated Information-Sharing System," which is the next step in the development of so-called "Fusion Centers."
After 9/11, there was a push to create fusion centers so that local, state, and federal agencies could share intelligence, allowing the FBI, for example, to see if the local police have anything in their files on a particular individual. Now the Department of Homeland Security wants to create its own internal fusion center so that its many agencies can aggregate the data they have and make it searchable from a central location.
I also wrote about military contractors offering states spy technology that enables predator drones to "see through walls." But what I wasn't expecting is to see this technology used against American citizens so soon. But I guess I should not be surprised: "Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front."
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.
And according the the Los Angeles Times article, "Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said."
And speaking of the FBI, not long ago security researcher Trevor Eckhart reported that a company called Carrier IQ, "came under fire after [he] demonstrated that the previously little-known company had software installed on a variety of phones on a variety of networks that could track user locations, keystrokes, encrypted Internet traffic and more, some of which was or could be sent back to either the cell phone owner's service provider or Carrier IQ's own servers," according to Michael Morisy of MuckRock News.
Well, now it turns out that after Morisy submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request, the FBI has admitted that they are indeed accessing data produced by Carrier IQ for law enforcement investigative purposes.
And that's not all (of course). The Wall Street Journal recently reported that it obtained documents that "open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.
I encourage people to check out the report: The Surveillance Catalog - Where governments get their tools.
Folks, when these powers that are now encircling us, taking over countries, one by one, turn to the dark side (once and for all), it ain't going to be pretty. There is no precedence for this type of totalitarian control in the entire history of humanity.
I will continue writing about these things for the foreseeable future, but all of the sudden, I'm beginning to understand Naomi's concern a little better.
When an oppressive government can track your every action, every communication, every move, and when it can even see through walls, there is no telling what horrors it could eventually inflict on those who rise in protest, whether the protest is peaceful (as we've seen thus far), or otherwise.