Why I am constantly freaked out.

written January 26th, 2011 in Redwood City, CA (Bay Area) 

In my quest to know the terrible truth I find the traps clapping shut over my freedoms while I watch.

Months ago I updated my status to “It’s an electronic cage,” on Skype.

My idealism preceeded me into the Bay Area in 2010 when Facebook, like the world of Tron, turned to enslave the user by selling every iota of our digital data generated to someone else. That and every other week there is some snatch and grab legislation proposed by a public official convinced that pre-conviction is the one true path to their ability to stay on top.

I just wonder if there are enough of us regular, semi-sane people left who won’t put our heads down and go back to work when they do this. It’s a full time job to watch these evil grown up children play their games with federal money. This currency is competitive with actual Monopoly money. Their rules say if I print my own money that’s a reason to go to jail. However, when the Federal Reserve does it, it’s legal because the government needs that for wars. The wherever-you-want wars.

[So why are we borrowing from China, again?]

Throw in a black budget with 28 pay grades past the authority of the US President and I just sit around wondering why we have to pay for any of it. I feel cheated. I feel wronged.

My rib cage feels so small. My need for oxygen increases. Thankfully, breathing has not become a pre-criminalized offense.

I am now grateful for things I never would have been grateful for 5 years ago. There are no corporate or city sponsored surveillance cameras in my neighborhood. I’m closer to nature. I know more about what to do. Like take the battery out of my cell phone. Wear humongous 70’s sunglasses and stylish hooded sport outfits, like a jerk from West L.A.

I still get upset when I see that drones are being deployed in Austin, TX to do routine police work. Like it wasn’t enough for the DNA captures on infants, or the Guardasil scandal, or the involuntary blood draws for DUI suspects, the Fusion Center or whatever. The list is getting long.

Instead, I moved to a place where people are enthusiastically discarding freedom and privacy for cool gadgety awesomeness and THINGS. Northern California already had 3 data surveillance [fusion] centers. Its so weird to walk around in the BART centers and listen to Janet Napolitanos voice on the loudspeaker reminding us that America is now Stalinist Russia or New China...whatever. And now legislators want my ISP because I won’t volunteer for a national encryption login.

I wish I could start the Leave Me Alone campaign. The armies are awake enough to do it.