The reports from the morning papers (or the digital equivalent of such rags) tell us that Reddit, Meta, and Google have been handing over the private effects of citizens to the Department of Homeland Security—and all without the courtesy of a single warrant.
It is a marvelous age we live in. In my day, if a man wanted to read your private mail, he had to at least have the decency to bribe a postman or steam open an envelope in a dark room. Now, one set of billionaires simply hands the keys to another set of bureaucrats over a glass of sherry.
We are told these “platforms” are the new Town Square. If so, it is a square where the cobbles have ears, the statues take notes, and the proprietor sells your whispers to the Sheriff the moment you turn your back, and calls it “civic cooperation.”
The Fourth Amendment was intended to protect a man’s house as his castle. But our modern castles are built of glass and hosted on “the Cloud,” which is merely a polite term for “someone else’s computer.” And the gates, it seems, are perpetually unlatched for the tax-gatherer.
There is no limit to the ingenuity of man when it comes to the business of “Voluntary Disclosure.” It is the art of giving away what does not belong to you (the user’s privacy) to those who have no right to ask for it (the State), in exchange for the quiet life.
To be a billionaire is, apparently, to be a patriot who doesn’t believe in the paperwork of Liberty. A warrant is such a dusty, legalistic chore! Why bother with a judge when a handshake between kings will do? Lord, what fools these mortals be.
#usa #Oligarchy #politics #FreeSpeech #MarkTwainWisdom
Source: Gizmodo