Glenn Greenwald killed the internet

Community

Friday August 23, 2013 · 6:50 AM PDT

2013/08/23 · 06:50

You know the Internet is in trouble when people start taking plane flights to deliver messages. After Glenn Greenwald's partner was detained for nine hours and stripped of all his computer gear, it's clearly time to look at new ways of communicating.

Since it's come out that NSA programs target, um, everyone, I thought we should take a look at alternatives to the Internet and modern forms of communication. If Glenn Greenwald asked his partner, David Miranda, to deliver documents and messages by plane and still got snooped, what's left? Not to get too conspiratorial, but if they're monitoring our phone calls, watching all Internet communication and nabbing people on plane flights, seems like a good time to get off the grid if you want privacy.

Everything keeps coming up spying and secrets. Since I started working on this cartoon a couple of days ago, even more spying overreach has hit the news and Bradley Manning was given the longest sentence ever for leaking. Email, share, Facebook and comment on this cartoon, if you dare!

[poetic storyteller]

In days gone by, we shared with paper and pen.

We mailed letters, hand written, like gentlemen.

We even tied them to birds, pigeons in flight,

And hoped the message would get there, if it took all night.

Eventually, came computers, connected with wires!

Messages blossomed, fast-internet-inspired.

Bits of light and data, the world they rounded.

Ideas and stories and communication abounded!

Then the snooping, it started, slowly at first,

For consumers and citizens, then it grew in a burst--

With names, quite creepy, made on government floors.

The spies, they could watch, what was once only yours.

Some people encrypted, then fully disconnected.

But with thumb drives and discs, they still weren't protected--

From government heavies who took the whole set,

"Sit down, ol' chap, you may be a terrorist yet!"

With nowhere to hide, and rights on the wane,

You couldn't even send messages by plane!

So wires were cut and flights taken no more,

'Til an ingenious invention evened the privacy score.

With paper and pen, we were free at last.

We'd roll it in scrolls, stick it on a pigeon's ass!

And so goes the story, how we got our privacy treasure,

Once Glenn Greenwald . . . killed the internet forever.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Glenn Greenwald killed the internet

Comments are closed on this story.