Lavabit, the private email service Snowden reportedly used, made a decision between "becoming complicit in crimes against the American people or walking away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit". So Lavabit will be shutting down.
Shit like this pisses me off, man.
At one point in my life, I thought politicians and government officials were people I should look up to. That their job was to protect the United States and its citizens. To innovate, and help create sustainable environments, all the while keeping citizens safe, healthy, and happy while they continue to pay taxes. I thought the Bill of Rights was created specifically to give us specific liberties in case the government ever decided to do something out of hand. I thought the fourth amendment gave us a right to privacy. That no one could unreasonably search our seize any of our property without a warrant and unless there is a probable cause.
Now, I don't know a thing about politics or laws or how any of that works. But I always figured the Bill of Rights was, well... legitimate. When did we stop ignoring it? Why are people okay with this?
Hey there! I stumbled onto this post following some stuff from tumblr and I think it's important to know the more realistic/fleshed out history of our laws and freedoms, vs just the whitewashed platitudes taught in school. Here's something worth reading for this small bit of history and while Chomsky has to be taken with a bit of salt it's still some great insight and a good stepping off point to fuel the anger that we should be experiencing!
ReplyDeletehttp://salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy
"The founders of the American republic had pretty much the same view about the rabble. So they determined that “power must be in the hands of the wealth of the nation, the more responsible set of men. Those who have sympathy for property owners and their rights”, and of course for slave owners at the time. In general, men who understand that a fundamental task of government is “to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority”. Those are quotes from James Madison, the main framer [of the constitution]"
You soon realize that while we look at 1 to 2 year plans, these people are looking at 20/30/40 years and it's become all a bad game of PR bullshit. If you make one side sooo hated, you can get away with anything on the other side! People would march and scream about Bush and the Patriot Act and Gitmo, and Drones, but Obama's NSA scandal, Gitmo, and 900x more drones ... well... i don't see the marches or rally's.
It's just like George Washington predicted in his farewell address:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address#Political_parties
Washington makes the case that "the alternate domination" of one party over another and coinciding efforts to exact revenge upon their opponents have led to horrible atrocities, and "is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism."
...argues that political parties must be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies among groups and regions, raise false alarms amongst the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they can impose their will upon the country.
He wrote that in 1796!
None of this may answer your questions, but at least it might help make you understand what's going on and that George Washington knew this would happen and warned us!