Recently by Paul Rosenberg: The Internet Is Being Slaughtered in the BackRoom

ALL Spy Agencies Will Get Your Financial Data

The Chicago Tribune is now confirming what we’ve been warning for some time: That every US spy agency will have access to your financial data. The story doesn’t specify whether the IRS investigative division is included in that list, but if you still don’t think your rulers would stoop to that level, well… you’re simply evading.

There is one crucial thing to understand about this: The rulers have no choice.

The fiat currency games of the ruling elite are getting difficult these days. I’ll leave the details to the financial specialists, but debt is astronomical, interest rates can never rise again (without utterly killing national budgets), and inflation is just about to boil over. They need more money — lots of it — but the presses are already running at full speed and the consequences are mounting.

That leaves them only one acceptable choice: Loot the producers.

This has happened before, you understand. The closest example to ours is the end of the Roman empire. The state had expanded beyond sustainability, yet the rulers wouldn’t even consider scaling back.

Here are a couple of charts to make the point economically:

Point made?

As the Romans ran out of economic room, they squeezed their citizens dry. People ran away in droves to escape. Here’s a quote from a man named Salvian the Presbyter, writing in about 440 AD:

Thus, far and wide, they migrate either to the Goths or to the Bagaudae, or to other barbarians everywhere in power; yet they do not repent of having migrated. They prefer to live as freemen under an outward form of captivity, than as captives under the appearance of liberty. Therefore, the name of Roman citizens, at one time not only greatly valued, but dearly bought, is now repudiated and fled from, and it is almost considered not only base, but even deserving of abhorrence.

And here’s the same man’s explanation of how things felt as Rome reached its end:

Nobody thought of the State’s expenses, nobody thought of the State’s losses, because the cost was not felt. The State itself sought how it might squander what it was already scarcely able to acquire. The heaping up of wealth which had already exceeded its limit was overflowing even into trifling matters… We are already poverty-stricken, yet we do not cease to be spendthrift.

Sound familiar?

THE POINT

The point of this is that the Internet is now a tool of the state, and its purpose is to aid in looting you.

Shiny gadgets and free services won; libertarian programmers lost; game over, though it was a good run.

Get clear in your mind: The Internet is now a Surveillance Web. Treat it accordingly.

There are ways to protect yourself, or course, but they will cost you, either in time or in money. If you’re still looking for easy and free, grow up — that’s a game for suckers. You get what you pay for.

To protect yourself, you can either pay for a quality service, or you can work for your protection. That means that you’ll have to obtain, install, and properly use these things:

Tor or I2P.

GPG.

OTR chat.

A firewall made by people who acknowledge the importance of privacy.

A reverse firewall.

A MAC changer.

Firefox, with NoScript and Better Privacy extensions.

An email client like Thunderbird, NOT webmail.

No more Google, Facebook or Twitter.

Get into a security forum and pay attention.

The season of looting has begun. Be wise or be foolish.

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