Wednesday, August 21, 2013

GCSB Bill: Today Infamy is Transacted … Here’s Why & Implications of it - Groklaw Closes, the Internet is Dead.



Twitter spoke in New Zealand last night and MP’s who will vote for mass surveillance today, scampered off and blocked and blocked for their privacy in a manner they will ensure free men can’t anymore.

Symbolically, the very important US legal site, Groklaw, closed itself down last night, unwilling to work in an environment there, our MP’s vote in today here, where we are to lose our very humanness. I’ll get to that at the end, but the road to serfdom first.



First, I know this is a side-show:







But that said, today is symbolic, and as with the closure of Groklaw, symbolism matters.


The Representative of Freedom Who Blocked Me Wanting His Privacy.

Paul Foster-Bell is a National MP. The below is long-winded as I had to go direct to his account as he blocked everybody he was debating with when he realised he couldn’t justify his vote today. This man is supposedly our representative:

























At this stage my representative blocked me, and many others, saying:



As Juha intimated, when the going gets tough, Paul Foster-Bell sneaks out the back-door:






And here’s why mass-surveillance gets voted in today:

The bloody conservative Tory voter; of all people BustedBlonde, not even realising she’s being boiled in her own catering:














And that is how the last remnant of the free West in New Zealand was lost, on this day of infamy, 21 August, 2013, at the hands of a National government, with toadies Peter Dunne from United First, and John Banks from ACT.


The Closure of US Legal Site, Groklaw.

Our freedom gets closed down even further, just as Obamamarx is doing in the US. Like Busted Blonde, you don’t understand the full implications of this, until you realise, with epiphany, that free men and women are having to go underground.

A US legal site called Groklaw, an institution, shut itself down yesterday:



Site owner Pamela Jones gave this reason for why, but read the whole piece:


The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too. 

There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum.
What to do?

What to do? I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure it out. And the conclusion I've reached is that there is no way to continue doing Groklaw, not long term, which is incredibly sad. But it's good to be realistic. And the simple truth is, no matter how good the motives might be for collecting and screening everything we say to one another, and no matter how "clean" we all are ourselves from the standpoint of the screeners, I don't know how to function in such an atmosphere. I don't know how to do Groklaw like this.

(Snip)

My personal decision is to get off of the Internet to the degree it's possible. I'm just an ordinary person. But I really know, after all my research and some serious thinking things through, that I can't stay online personally without losing my humanness, now that I know that ensuring privacy online is impossible. I find myself unable to write. I've always been a private person. That's why I never wanted to be a celebrity and why I fought hard to maintain both my privacy and yours. 

Oddly, if everyone did that, leap off the Internet, the world's economy would collapse, I suppose. I can't really hope for that. But for me, the Internet is over. 

So this is the last Groklaw article. I won't turn on comments. Thank you for all you've done. I will never forget you and our work together. I hope you'll remember me too. I'm sorry I can't overcome these feelings, but I yam what I yam, and I tried, but I can't.


Of course she’s right. When you live in a mass-surveillance state, where everything you say is recorded and stored away, able to be retrieved on a keystroke and used against you, you ‘lose your humanness’.

Our MP’s in Parliament are voting away our humanness today. As usual I’m angry as hell, but my anger is as pointless as my vote in this tyranny our social democracy has become.

One day, possibly soon, I will sign off for good also.

at

4 comments:

  1. Brendan McNeillAugust 21, 2013 at 3:52 PM

    Hi Mark

    Your frustration is understandable. There is little point in your signing off for good because your fingerprints are all over the place. Just like mine. We both needed to make that choice 1994 or was that 1984?

    Stay on line and make *them* reach for the off switch. ;-)

    Brendan

    ReplyDelete
  2. gregsterAugust 21, 2013 at 9:03 PM

    Key is Muldoon without the grimace. Utterly a fuckwit. But not as much as the opposition.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark HubbardAugust 21, 2013 at 9:08 PM

      Agree. Our trouble is, topple him and we're stuck with the big taxing statists.

      Delete