Stage 2

With the advent of the World Wide Web and the beginning of it’s widespread use in the early 1990′s, it became evident to those of us “in the business” that privacy was soon to be a major concern among the masses. Those technical thinkers in my peer group (of which I didn’t become one until several years later – I was more of a “hanger-on”), have always warned of the dangers of privacy invasions while online.While most of you have become aware of this increasing issue over the course of the last decade, many of us in the shadows have noted for a very long time (from the mid 1990′s forward) that the government was increasingly gaining more and more of a presence in the online community.There are people out there that can see into the future. Now before you start thinking that I am talking about psychics and such pseudo-crap such as that, I am not. I am talking about folks that are hyper-aware of their surroundings, their business, their commercial endeavors and the functions of interactions among people and between people and technology. It is how billionaires become billionaires.In every endeavor since the beginning of time, there’s been those with an enhanced entrepreneurial spirit capable of making things happen when others are caught in the moment, those not being able to see into the future and predict the outcome of actions started years previous. In some respects, I have a slight ability to do this. Admittedly, I write down some things I predict will happen in the near future, not based on “feelings”, but based on a little deductive reasoning, analytical thinking, and the ability to think things through a bit more thoroughly than other people. Perhaps even “outside the box” would be a good explanation.

Now, you might think, based on the paragraph above and maybe a couple other statements herein, I am boasting. That’s not the case at all. At least it’s not my intent. My intent is, I am perhaps a little above average in my intelligence, yet, I know there’s many thousands of people out there that are well above me in the intelligence food chain. That being said, with a pretty good record (it’s a personal record at best) of seeing the outcome of many timelines years before they occur, it’s donned on me that being right isn’t what it’s all about, it’s the fact that knowing there’s thousands of people out there smarter than I am that can do the same thing, better. This in itself, when carried to the fullest possible extent of my intellect, is very eye-opening. Why? Well, let me explain….

If I have a good track record of predicting future events based on previous events (and other than Obama getting whacked before he took the oath of office, I am pretty much 100%) then those out there that are a lot smarter than I am with a lot more insight or foreknowledge of events that I have no information about, should be a lot better at it and can do so with a much larger spectrum of information. It’s simple statistical analysis, not rocket science. That being said, what can someone with my predictive abilities, with a super huge I.Q. that has privileged information to particular subjects derive from the information?

The overall point to this particular thesis is, when the World Wide Web came into being and it became known to the first person(s) with these abilities, how long did it take them to know (remember, it was the mid-1990′s when folks I know/knew predicted the privacy issues, which means it was widespread knowledge) that the WWW would be jeopardizing the privacy of the entire netizenry? Seriously. Think about it. The secrecy of a secret diminishes exponentially by each person that knows the secret.

In the latter half of the 1960′s, a few scientists from major universities developed the basis for what would become the Internet. These guys, in their day, were the leaders in the communications fields. We’re talking about the top engineers from Bell Labs, MIT, University of California, DARPA, ARPA, etc. At what point between then and say around 1993 or so, did it become evident to these folks that the WWW would eventually lead to the complete and total inundation of government spies into the WWW, spying against the citizens of the United States? Why did I just say that? I said it because the people I mentioned earlier, my peers from the 1990′s? Well, they predicted it back in the 90′s and you know as well as I know, a large group of people doesn’t come to the same conclusion simultaneously. 2, 4, 10, perhaps. Yes, there’s been times in our history that 2 or more people have invented something or came to the same conclusion at or near the same time while working completely independently and without the knowledge of each others’ work. But hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the mid to late 90′s were predicting that the U.S. government would use the WWW to spy on its citizens. Now, it’s making major headlines:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cnn-reporter-put-on-watch-list-after-criticizing-tsa.html

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/realtime/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120206052.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/2/wave-goodbye-to-internet-freedom/

When did the first person think: “…you know, if everyone gets connected to the Internet, someone could database everything about them and blah, blah, blah.”???

It’s scary to think this thing through. So scary in fact, because I’ve never really read this line of reasoning before in any of the articles I’ve read, including conspiracy nuts and the like. Seriously, think about it. Someone out there had to have the foreknowledge that this kind of thing was going to happen or at the very least, it would eventually be possible. It’s very predictable if you had the inside information and the ability to think it through properly. Did this person or persons that had this ability, think it through and knew what was to come (very likely) and did these people agree that it was something the government *should* do in the future? (possibly) Now here’s where I inject my own little conspiracy theory: If these folks knew, could see it and agreed that it’s something “good” for the government to look forward to, did they also help manipulate the series of events in order to make it happen?

Like I said, some very scary things to think about. There’s thousands of branches from this line of reasoning one might take and come to different conclusions.

The bottom line however, the government has been found to be using the current WWW to spy on citizens outside the scope of legal boundaries and without complete and total due regard for our laws.

We know most of what happened in the beginning, I know that in the mid 90′s, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people predicted what would eventually happen. We’ve seen things change over the years that’s enabled people and organizations to place themselves into situations to facilitate spying. We’ve witnessed the effects of identity theft on small individual scales and we’re now witnessing the government being caught up in the spying on citizens against current laws. We’ve known about Echelon and the government’s “black boxes” being placed at ISPs to collect data. We come to know about Echelon, etc. exactly how long after it was implemented? (there’s another branch of discussion that coincides with my thoughts concerning “when it became known”).

From the way I see it, we’re in Stage 2. Stage 2 being, we know it’s happening, the government is doing it without proper oversight and outside the boundaries of law.

What is Stage 3? The government not caring if you like it or not, but they’re going to do it, do it openly and stick their middle finger up at us and say “like it or not, we’re going to know EVERYTHING about you?

Do any of you see an end to this type of behavior by our government? Seriously. Once the government starts doing something, it’s extremely (if not impossible in most cases) to stop. I see the Federal Government as being an unstoppable force against the will of the people. For what it’s worth, Congress will be powerless to take care of this problem, even if they wanted to. The unstoppable force will eventually wear down the will of the people and get its way. Can we change it? Perhaps. Perhaps when there’s enough of us enlisted in the military to show that no matter what the government does, they’ll not have the military might to back up their actions. I predict it will take an aggressive and more likely a physical approach (read: militant uprising) of the people to get government under control. I didn’t say it was warranted (yet) nor called for (yet) nor that I condone it (yet), but as I see it, voting, the written word and open dialect are only the precursors to the actions needed to get our Freedoms back.