We recently received an email from a woman who follows our blog. She wished the blog happy third birthday and said she had chosen not to comment publicly because of the way the government now monitors the internet, blogs, website, with greater depth. Here’s the link about it.
“The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Media Monitoring Initiative (MMI) has been expanded to collect and track information from online forums, blogs, public websites, message boards, and social networking sites, as well as gather “personally identifiable information” (PII) on journalists and media writers,” says the article.
Interestingly, we’ve noticed an uptick in the number of hits by military ISPs lately. These hits often come from Arlington, Virginia or from obscure town in Maryland, or from Washington, D.C. The hits from D.C. are sometimes from the State Department or the “District of Columbia government.”
Once, last year, we got a hit from the White House after one of Obama’s speeches. But that doesn’t count in this context because it appeared that someone in the Obama administration was looking for reactions to his speech out here in blogland. What counts here, I think, is that the government realizes blogging is a dynamic way of exchanging information, increasing awareness, of changing minds. They also understand that social media is, of course, as witnessed in the Mideast, a way to organize a revolution, a rebellion, or just a protest.
Our friend mentioned that she has seen many blogs simply disappear because bloggers fear they’re being monitored. That’s tragic. The Bush administration’s mantra was, Be afraid, be very afraid, they’re coming for you, watching you, we’ll protect you…. And in the several years after 9-11, they were successful with their fear message. But as people woke up, they realized Bush was like the wizard in Oz, a small, pathetic man whose power lay in the people around him – Rove, Wolfowitz, Cheney. These guys were the ones who spun the illusions.
If bloggers go silent, if blogs vanish because of fear, if social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook begin to censor, then how are we different from China? South Korea? Cuba? I emailed the link to several people and one friend who responded feels that the last remnant of democracy vanished in December …presumably when Obama signed a bill that allows the military to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial. If you look suspicious, if you act suspiciously, you are basically screwed.
In just the last year, the number of names on the U.S. No-Fly list has doubled. Why? Have we been attacked? Are there new threats? Well, if you watch the new TV show Homeland, and there’s any semblance of truth to it, then the answer is yes, and the people who guard our security are the most paranoid on the face of the planet.
I can’t imagine what a military information-gathering unit can find in posts about the mysterious, hidden, implicate order from which synchronicities unfold. I can’t imagine what material they would find in in any of the blogs we follow that constitutes a security threat. But hey, maybe while they’re checking out these blogs they run across something that resonates for them. Lights go off in their heads, sirens shriek, they are floored, stunned, and their worldviews shift. Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?
And that’s why no blogger should retreat in fear. We all have something to contribute to the paradigm shift. We all have wisdom to share.




















