First they came for the Whistleblowers, and I did not speak out

I think most people feel powerless, either financially or technically.<p>Many people I know think what the NSA is doing is completely wrong, but they have problems logging into facebook and getting their email to work, they just feel powerless because they don&#x27;t understand the technology behind the world they live in.<p>How can they stand up to something they can&#x27;t even begin to comprehend?<p>The NSA could literally do anything they wanted to most people and they wouldn&#x27;t even know about it.<p>And then we have a much smaller group of people in the tech industry (most people who frequent Hacker News), who know what the NSA is doing is horribly horribly wrong, but are afraid of being destroyed financially, socially, and professionally for standing up to them.<p>It feels like swimming up a waterfall. The NSA can so easily ruin lives by planting illegal material on your computer, then tip off the local cops who get a search warrant, then they seize your computer and find the illegal material on your computer.<p>And you life is ruined.<p>I mean, they are so powerful technologically speaking, they can ruin lives without so much as lifting a finger.<p>It&#x27;s very scary and very real.

The Snowden documents revealed that Germans visiting the Tor project website would be subject to permanent NSA surveillance. Does that make you more or less likely to click the link below? If the answer is &quot;less likely&quot;, how does it feel to be intimidated out of your free expression?<p><a href="https://www.torproject.org/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.torproject.org&#x2F;</a>

Site is down for me. Text:<p>By Robert J Berger, on July 5th, 2014<p>First they came for the Whistleblowers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Whistleblower.<p>Then they came for the Boing Boing Readers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Boing Boing Reader.<p>Then they came for the Linux Users, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Linux User.<p>Then they came for people who mocked the NSA, and I did not speak out— Because I was not mocking the NSA.<p>Then they came for the Jews (they always eventually come for the Jews even when Jews think they are mainstream), and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.<p>Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.

There&#x27;s a bigger problem today: I <i>did</i> speak out. Perhaps you did too. You tweeted, retweeted, commented, blogged etc. Noone cared. What now?

Cached: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i-hXFA0yGi0J:blog.ibd.com/how-the-world-works/first-they-came-for-the-whistleblowers-and-i-did-not-speak-out/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:i-hXFA0...</a>

In case someone doesn&#x27;t know the reference:<p><a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..." rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;First_they_came_...</a>.

Cached:<p><a href="http://hn.premii.com/#/article/7993426/first-they-came-for-the-whistleblowers-and-i-did-not-speak-out" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.premii.com&#x2F;#&#x2F;article&#x2F;7993426&#x2F;first-they-came-for-t...</a>

The second to last line betrays a misunderstanding of the current order of things. (Unless the writer thinks it is the Muslims or the KKK that are coming for us.) Jews in general are no longer the victims.

I should not need to remind this crowd but if anyone feels doubt over what can and must be done, simply search YouTube for &quot;Eben Moglen&quot;; you can&#x27;t go wrong.

There is always a counter movement. It&#x27;s going on right now, but for obvious reasons they don&#x27;t make themselves known. Find each other.

Look at all of the people that have gotten fired (or lost their careers) for things they said or did in their private time over the past year.<p>The firings were brought on by mob mentality on Twitter and Facebook with no judge or jury. All to silence opposing view points.<p>If such behavior is accepted as normal, why is it any surprise that our government is doing the same thing..and worse?<p>Big brother is here, and it&#x27;s us. I&#x27;m glad I learned early on to stay anonymous on the Internet.