The new KGB?

[John F. McMullen]

>From the Dynamist list, a call to civil disobedience
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Text forwarded from
http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe201-20021202-03.html


THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 201, December 2, 2002
MINE'S A MODEL 21

"Revenge of the Nerds"
by William Stone, III
http://www.wrstone.com

Exclusive to TLE
The "Homeland Security Act" is the usual kind of atrocity that we've all
come to expect from the would-be slave-holders in Washington. In an
astounding violation of their Oaths of Office, lawmakers have passed a bill
that violates every single one of the Bill of Rights.

In a marvellous display of ignorance (explained to me by a coworker who is a
Russian expatriate), one of the Russian translations of "Homeland Security"
is "KGB". For brevity's sake, the Act and the Unconstitutional, immoral
Federal offices it creates will hereafter be referred to as "the American
KGB."

Under the KGB, Americans no longer have any Constitutional guarantees. NONE.
Not that this comes as a surprise to anyone who's been paying even the
slightest bit of attention to American political discourse over the last
century. Federal officials have been in the process of murdering the
Constitutional Republic since the Lincoln Administration. The American KGB
simply pounds the final nail into its coffin, creating the de facto police
state about which politicians have always dreamed.

What the American KGB proves -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- is that we can
no longer depend on government to safeguard our liberties. With the passage
of this Act, it becomes clear that government is the primary violator of our
liberties.

We can no longer believe that government will help us out of this mess.
Government is the mess.

One of the central tenets of the American KGB is the creation of the "Total
Information Awareness" (TIA) program. Masterminded by the aptly-named
criminal John Poindexter, TIA will be a vast, centralized government
database that will monitor the actions of every man, woman, and child in
America from cradle to grave.

The American KGB will monitor all your financial transactions: credit card
and white market cash purchases, ATM transactions, cash withdrawls or
deposits, checking account transactions, investments, IRAs, etc. It will
monitor your medical data, your travel habits, your Internet usage, and your
phone calls. It will monitor what books and magazines you read. It will
monitor and store your private and business correspondence.

Particular attention will be focused on your defense choices, making the TIA
program a de facto Federal gun registration database. The hobby of reloading
is essentially over, as the American KGB establishes new rules for
"explosive" purchases that will make it illegal for reloaders to obtain the
necessary chemicals without a Federal license.

Is there be any doubt that the Republicans are just as dedicated to victim
disarmament as the Democrats? In the name of "fighting terrorism" a
Republican administration has single-handedly guaranteed more innocent
deaths via "gun control" than every Democrat in the collective history of
the nation. This in the face of the irrefutable fact that September 11 would
not have been possible had the individuals aboard the hijacked aircraft not
been Unconstitutionally prohibited from exercising their natural right to
self-defense.

Once more, the Republicans prove that America doesn't have two political
parties, but rather identical political cousins played by Patty Duke.

TIA is the "permanent record" that your gradeschool principle always
threatened you about. That it is unspeakably evil is obvious.
Contrary to what most individuals believe, the FedGov does not presently
have the technology to track this kind of information. As a computer nerd
employed by a major credit card issuer, I can categorically state that
neither my company nor any other financial institution is currently sending
customer records to the FedGov. Similarly, your doctor, travel agent or
airline, magazine, library, and ISP are not presently mirroring this
information to the FedGov.

This means that all of the TIA systems -- both those in the FedGov and those
that providers will use to send the data -- must be be constructed. This
process, even using private-sector talent (invariably several orders of
magnitude superior to that available to government) will take years.

This is where the FedGov has made its critical mistake in the attempt to
create a police state. The systems won't just magically appear, they'll be
constructed. Nor will they be constructed by laymen using Microsoft Excel,
but by professionals.

Our hope now lies in the individual. It lies in a place that should leave
any government toady quaking in his boots:

Our hope now rests on the nerds.

Understand, please, that I intend no malice when I use the word "nerd." I
myself am an Information Security professional, one of only two holders of
the coveted "CISSP" certification in the state of South Dakota. I've proudly
been a nerd since 1979, when my father bought his first computer for his
business.

The TIA systems will be built by the nerds. WE control information systems
and the Internet, not some Federal agency. This evil abomination of a law is
only possible if we nerds cooperate in creating it.

Do you hear me, President Bush, Senator Daschle, and Congressman Thune? We
control these things, not you. Your systems exist solely because we choose
to cooperate.

It's now time for you to learn the truth of that statement. It's time for we
nerds to become the front-line warriors in the cause of individual liberty.

My friends, fellow nerds, we must refuse to cooperate.

If you work for a bank, as I do, when your employer assigns you the task of
creating the system to mirror customer data to the FedGov, you must refuse.

If you work for an ISP, and are ordered to track and mirror Internet traffic
and e-mail to the FedGov, you must refuse.

If you work for a travel agency, magazine, or library and are ordered to
mirror information to the FedGov, you must refuse.

If you work for a gun store (or other retail store) and create the systems
used to track customer purchases, you must refuse.

If you work for the FedGov and are ordered to create the systems to house
the data sent to you, you must refuse.

Understand the consequences of non-compliance, potentially far more deadly
than at any time in American history:

Under the American KGB, any refusal to cooperate in the hideously evil TIA
program will brand us as terrorists under Federal law. We will therefore no
longer be subject to normal proceedings, such as an attorney or trial. We
will be termed "enemy combatants," meaning that the American KGB may do
anything they like to us.

Many of us will lose our lives and fortunes. When my employer is ordered by
regulatory agencies to comply with FedGov edicts, failure risks the end of
his business. He will therefore want to fire me when I refuse to cooperate.

It may be that the KGB will want to make an example of me. They may whisk me
away in the dead of night (as is common practice for gun owners, individuals
with unusual religious practices, drug users, prostitutes, and other persons
whose "crimes" harm no one but themselves). They may wish to beat me into
submission and make me recant my words. They may simply take me out and
shoot me. Under the American KGB, there are no pesky Constitutional
guarantees to get in the way.

If they don't do it to me, no doubt one of my fellow nerds reading this
column will become such a victim.

Know this, however: while we can and will lose our lives and fortunes,
refusing to cooperate with the American KGB is the only way to retain our
sacred honor. In the immortal words of Mohandas K. Gandhi:
"They may torture my body, break my bones, or even kill me. Then they will
have my dead body, not my obedience."

My friends, my brother and sister nerds, my comrades-in-arms: we are called.
This is our time. We must step forward to the challenge, to do our part to
see that our children are not burdened with the chains of slavery our
governments wish to place on them. We must stand together, united in our
cause, and refuse to be the spineless lackeys that the FedGov believes us to
be.

We are our nation's, our children's, our entire way of life's best hope. If
we fail now, the only recourse our children will have is bloody revolution.
That is our choice: stand now or force revolution on our children.

I invite you to join me in a solemn vow, a covenant between ourselves and
those we protect:
Come what may, we will not submit to this evil law.
The FedGov has just made this our war. Let them cower in fear before the
revenge of the nerds.


William Stone, III is a computer nerd and philosopher of the Zero Aggression
Principle from McCook Lake, South Dakota. He seeks the Libertarian Party's
nomination for the 2004 Senate race is South Dakota.


  "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
  "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson
  "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" -
   Pierre Abelard
  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
   -- Arthur C. Clarke
                         John F. McMullen
  johnmac at acm.org ICQ: 4368412 Fax: (603) 288-8440 johnmac at cyberspace.org
                 http://www.westnet.com/~observer
                             NOYFB,P

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