I have been invited to write for this outlet, and there’s never been a better time to start diversifying a portfolio in terms of the amount and variety of communications you put out there. There are many reasons I say this, but one of the primary reasons  is that the US government is cracking down on alternative forms of communication actively. Not only that, but they’re comparing people who tell the truth to terrorists, criminals, and more. In a document signed by Trump, and published by the The U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Wikileaks was thrown under the bus, along with a host of other people who Trump has tapped to boost his campaign, and keep his numbers high. It reads:

The number of actors targeting the United States is growing. Russia and China operate globally, use all instruments of national power to target the United States, and have a broad range of sophisticated intelligence capabilities. Other state adversaries such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea; non-state actors such as Lebanese Hizballah, ISIS, and al-Qa’ida; as well as, transnational criminal organizations and ideologically motivated entities such as hacktivists, leaktivists, and public disclosure organizations, also pose significant threats. Additionally, foreign nationals with no formal ties to foreign intelligence services steal sensitive data and intellectual property.

Now, to those of you who have gallows humor as your primary source of coping and comfort in times like these, feel free to laugh  at all the people who claimed that Trump was a great victory for freedom of the press, speech, and organization. For additional humor, remember how many times he praised WikiLeaks while he was on the campaign trail, because of the way they consistently opposed Hillary and other establishment politicians, in a way that benefited him and his campaign. This is the same person who later said he had no idea who WikiLeaks was after being pressed on their involvement in sharing leaks of Hillary Clinton’s emails. This is the same person who has repeatedly said that he loves WikiLeaks, so much so that when he claimed he never heard of them, a ton of outlets and social media commentators, were very quick to build compilations of him praising WikiLeaks publicly.

Not only does none of that seem to matter to him now, and not only does he seem totally willing to throw allies under the bus when they are no longer useful to him like some kind of garbage, but someone connected with him then told Assange the only way he would get a pardon is if he completely disavowed Russia’s involvement in the US election! At least, that’s what his lawyers say. From The Guardian:

Assange’s lawyers alleged that during a visit to London in August 2017, congressman Dana Rohrabacher told the WikiLeaks founder that “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks.

A few hours later, however, Rohrabacher denied the claim, saying he had made the proposal on his own initiative, and that the White House had not endorsed it.”

Rohrabacher insists that he did this on his own and that both his presence and inquiries there were both done of his own volition, and not at the instruction of the White House, despite him having been invited to the White House by Trump in April 2017. The Guardian continues:

In September 2017, the White House confirmed that Rohrabacher had called the then chief of staff, John Kelly, to talk about a possible deal with Assange, but that Kelly had not passed on the message to Trump. Rohrabacher confirmed that version of events on his blog on Wednesday.

So, there you have it. You’re only as useful as you are beneficial to Trump. Once you’ve outlived your usefulness, he’ll discard you. Of course, this attitude isn’t exclusive to Trump, nor is this situation unique. But what it does is highlight the attitude of the state, and gives you insight into the way they talk about software you might use on a daily basis. They’re going after anyone who even has the capability to leak anything, and since this sort of fear mongering is almost always a precursor to legislation, you can count on this software being hard to get later,at least. At most, you’re looking at potential scapegoating, gaslighting, and other nasty forms of psychological manipulation, to twist public perception against anyone who uses anything similar, and level public opinion against them.

Why does this matter? Well, easy.

Tell me, what do you know about terrorists? What do you know about their rich intrapersonal lives? What can you tell me about their hopes, dreams, and aspirations? If you answered nothing, you know you’ve been propagandized. Terrorism doesn’t just spring up from nowhere, and if it’s not obvious that a lot of this is the result of blow back, I bet you’re a regular viewer of mainstream media, and consider yourself a good law-abiding citizen. You probably don’t even need the software I’m talking about, at least, you don’t think so. Because you’re not a terrorist. You’re a patriotic American. And you are not a terrorist, so there’s no reason for you to care what happens to them, or why they became what they are, or who they are as people. All you need to do is pay your taxes, follow the laws, make sure to vote on time, and nothing bad will happen to you, at least not from the government. It can’t happen here, and it can’t happen to you. Only criminals have anything to fear, and you’re no criminal, so you have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear.

Except most people “over there” didn’t start out as terrorists. They started out normal people, with normal life problems. That is, until the brutal reality of western empire came to their doorstep. Then, many of them had the choice to get involved, or roll over and play dead after they were abused. Many of them chose not to roll over, and joined what the West would consider a terrorist organization out of what they considered pragmatism. As far as many of them were concerned, their governments were allowing a foreign entity to come in and stop their Liberty, and they sought whatever solution seemed like it wouldn’t result in the eventual destruction of their culture, family, friends, and children.

If any of this sounds familiar, and puts a number like 1776 in your mind, congratulations. You’ve just made the connection between empire and the destruction of freedom. It’s the first step to realizing that maybe freedom fighters still have a job to do.

When the Virginia Second Amendment marches happened, I can’t tell you how many people I saw calling for the people practicing their legal First and Second Amendment privileges to be deemed a terrorist threat.   So many people wanted to pigeonhole, label, and deride anyone involved. They wanted to dehumanize these people, and make it about the tools in their hands, as though they were the real threat, and the people holding them were  mindless drones  puppeteering around evil bullet cannons. The same sort of propaganda was spoken of Chelsea Manning, who is still being coerced into testimony, at the pain of spending the rest of her life in a cold dark hole because she chose to expose war crimes to the public, rather than going through the official channels which would almost certainly be obfuscated, and which would almost certainly result in punitive measures against her. Like Edward Snowden, currently forced to reside in Russia, because he told the people that there was a problem with universal spying, constantly monitoring every single one of us. Even if we’re not criminals, this grid is omnipresent and nigh-omniscient. If you use the wrong tech, that is.

Not good enough? John Mark Dougan exposed a local Police Department to be a network of criminals, and otherwise terrible people, and was forced to evacuate the country, leaving his family alone, because he wouldn’t be silent about the truth, and  he wouldn’t let his neighbors live alongside people he knew to be evil, without trying to expose them. Or Irwin Schiff, who did nothing but tell people what he thought to be the truth about US tax code, and spend a significant amount of time languishing in a box, and eventually died, an enemy of the state. Or Assange, who we discussed earlier, stuck in a glass box like a serial killer, under constant surveillance, and unable to move, all for running a public truth and disclosure site. That’s just his latest abuses, and this is just a start! It doesn’t  even to get to all of the thousands of innocent people brutally assaulted, tortured, and killed by police, for truly minor things, or for nothing at all. Like Rodney King, who’s beating set the standard for filming cops in the future. Or Kelly Thomas, brutally beaten while his mental illness kicked in, calling for his mother and father, apologizing profusely, dying later in the hospital. Or Daniel Shaver, compliant, yet still brutally murdered in the middle of a hotel hallway while pleading for his life. Or legal gun owner Philando Castille, gunned down mercilessly in his own vehicle after telling officers he had a gun, and therefore abiding by the law. None of this even touches on the casualties of brutal wars for empire.

Let’s be clear, it doesn’t matter how small the offense is, or even if there is an offense at all, you could be a target. And given the fact that the state is coming after encryption software, they clearly want to be able to expand their target range, removing your ability to be private in what you say, and by extension what you think. And given the insane amount of new laws on the books every year, and the almost obsessive  desire the state is known to employ in order to increase their control and ability to monitor , even if you don’t have encryption software, and even if you aren’t into spreading truth, or assisting leakers, your software might be next. And they might use the existence of software on your machine as a component of a body of evidence, that you’re just as bad as threat as a terrorist.

Why does this matter to agorists? Well, that’s simple. Encryption is at the heart of most privacy enabled technology. It’s also at the heart of many cryptocurrencies. If the state decided to come after encryption software, they could effectively cripple a decent chunk of the burgeoning black market that exists. They could also cripple the business class, and enterprise-grade security software, thus leaving you, and anyone with whom you transact, vulnerable to not only their attacks, but the attacks of many foreign governments and other actors. Now, ask yourself, are the people using this software the real criminals, terrorists, and general ne’er-do-wells, or is it the group of people threatening them with violence for even having the software to begin with? Is it the people trying to quell dissent, and silence those who would tell the public the truth about what is going on, and how it affects them? And if hacktivists, leaktivists, and the like are going to be treated like terrorists, and so is anybody who has software that might make them capable of these things, how many people do you think will sympathize with you, or ask about your life story, or care about your inner struggles, if you’re ever the target of such a vile and sinister smear campaign? How many people are going to discard you as simply another terror threat who got what they deserve? Basically, how effective has the state’s campaign of fear been, and how easily could it take you down? And how hard are you willing to fight to keep your Liberty in the face of such a leviathan?

The answers to those questions will reveal the true champions of liberty, and leave you with more reason than ever to get encrypted today.

Are you a punk, or are you cypherpunk?

The choice is up to you.

https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/features/20200205-National_CI_Strategy_2020_2022.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/19/donald-trump-offered-julian-assange-pardon-russia-hack-wikileaks