The Tools of Tyranny.

RE: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/

These are the devices used by GCHQ to subvert privacy and the integrity of the internet. Everything on this list of capabilities is illegal. Anyone not using these methods under color of official authority would be prosecuted.

These are the tools of tyranny. Like all tools, they are agnostic, they may be used for good or for evil. Because GCHQ is a foundational part of FVEY, and because FVEY is now the malignant shadow of the internet, these tools are typically put to evil purposes. These are not the only tools that tyranny has available, it has many tools, but the surveillance behemoth consists of many constituent parts, and those parts have tools which pertain to them. In this case, these tools pertain to JTRIG. Our compliments to Mssrs. Snowden and Greenwald for the documentation.

The primary problem that we now have is an utter deficit of trust. No one trusts NSA / GCHQ / FVEY. We repeatedly see their leadership lie, or they engage in traditional bureaucratic stratagems like the infamous Five D's, (Destroy, Deny, Delay, Degrade, Disrupt, Deceive),* or the old "Admit nothing, deny everything, demand proof, make counter accusations," that some of us learned in our Intelligence 101 coursework. These are their reflexes, and they would rather lie to us than tell us the truth. They completely forget that they serve us, not the other way around.

It is unwieldy to type NSA / FBI / GCHQ / FVEY, so I will just call the meta-organization comprising FVEY and allied international SIGINT agencies the Panopticon. The Panopticon's fetish for secrecy has morphed into a contempt for all who are not them. Civilians are akin to cattle, we are taxpayers, not much different from the batteries needed by the electronic devices of the Panopticon. They lie to us automatically now, not even realizing that when they do this, they sow the seeds of their own eventual destruction. This is a natural law, when taken to its logical conclusion. All that it takes is time, and ignorance, and malign intent. All three are abundant in the current zeitgeist.

Governments may not lie to their citizens and expect to last. Because lying is now such a commonplace, because spin is now the norm, rather than the exception, it illustrates how far the relationship between the rulers and the ruled has deteriorated. When the people cannot believe anything stated by the government, we stop listening. When we stop listening, we disobey, and when we disobey, we go to jail, or we throw down. When the citizenry cannot petition its government for the redress of grievances, what is left? Violence. When a government rules with tyrannical intent, what is left? Violence. In fact, revolutionary violence. This is the path that the Panopticon is on. It is the path that we are all on. Tyranny begets violent resistance. This, too, is a natural law. Absent reforms, these are all inevitabilities.

None of this is rocket science. We saw the first symptoms of revolution spasm at the Bundy Ranch. Many of us recognized the idiosyncratic indicators of freedom immediately. Fortunately the Obama administration also recognized that the Bundy Ranch was a potential flashpoint, and it backed off and it avoided further confrontation. The point is, the situation in America has deteriorated to a point where a significant segment of the citizenry is prepared to resist the government by force of arms. That significant segment of the citizenry consists of just plain folks, folks who have guns, folks who will not be pushed around. We will not lay down our arms. We will not file peaceably to the cattle cars. We will not be incarcerated. This is the current assessment of the situation, the state of objective conditions, in America today: a significant percentage of the populace is ready to wage war against its own government. It does not matter that this potentially violent percentage is a minority. History is made by small cabals acting in secrecy. Small groups can move the world, if they have the right lever in their hands. As our history teaches us, even a lone gunman can change history, if he has the right target in his sights. A singleton cannot be anticipated, nor predicted. He just needs to be lucky once. 

The government cannot confiscate our weapons. That would cause an immediate outbreak of revolutionary violence, and we would probably hang Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, and Barack Obama from lamp posts. The government can interfere with ammunition availability, and I expect that it will, but this also contains the potential to push Americans into open rebellion. When the government in New York outlawed certain weapons and large capacity magazines, the citizens of that state ignored the law. We have a situation in New York where large numbers of state residents are now de facto felons. No one seems too concerned about this, except the government, which literally does not know what to do. 

In the meantime, true patriots are stewing over the abuses represented by the JTRIG tools of tyranny, and other grave offenses perpetrated by the Panopticon against we, the people. True patriots are deeply angered by the contempt that our governments display for us. These tools illustrate the depths to which our governments will stoop, the extremes to which they go. Nothing is off limits for the Panopticon. After all, we are just cattle. We are just batteries. We pay our taxes, and the Panopticon keeps the lights on. Then it resumes feasting on its own domestic populations.

Ultimate sovereignty rests with the people. The consent to be ruled is ours to bestow and ours to retract. The right to rebel is inherent in the nature of mankind. The threat represented by the Panopticon to us all, worldwide, is naked and unmistakable.

I wish that I could have confidence that electoral politics could steer us through these rough shoals of the waning days of the Obama administration. Because no one listens to anyone else these days, because our governments lie to us so often and so badly, it is inevitable that the coming confrontation will be violent. 

At what point do my words cross the threshold to incitement? I foretell. I do not commit. I observe the extremes of the current political situation, I call a spade a spade, I do not mince words. I am not a fortune teller nor a prophet. At most, I am a rudimentary mathematician, and I am adding up the sums of our days and ways in the era of the internet.

Those who would circumvent the coming violence should consider that it is easily prevented. All that is necessary is that our governments must stop lying to us. Tall order? Why? The arrogance of the rulers makes it unlikely that truth will become a sudden vogue, but it could happen. It would be better than violent revolution. Nobody wants that. I wish harm on no man. But I see much harm coming, storm clouds are gathering, and when our government points the machinery of mass surveillance at us, when our governments fear we, the people, the temperature rises, and all that it takes is one misstep, and the first shots of the Second American Revolution will be fired. 

As the man said in Reno: we will let them fire the first shots. We shall fire the rest.

*The Five D's are now six, with the addition of Delay to the sequence.