Any protest or dissent movement from this time on, which hopes to use the electronic social media is being naïve. We do not have a Democracy and protest is not viewed as a legitimate activity.
Governments everywhere and the people who support and depend upon them are frightened. Perhaps with good reason, mobs are ugly and dangerous things. The core fear is that protestors once recognizing their power would go mad and start lopping heads, (witness the guillotine which appeared during the protest in Tel Aviv.)
With the increasing fears and tension, no government will hesitate to shut down the public part of the internet and quite possibly the rest of public communications networks, governments still have their own nets. To this end, the people also need a network which cannot be arbitrarily shut down. I know how this could be built quite cheaply, but there is not sufficient motivation to do so as long as the main net is functional and free.
Pointing fingers at the United States is not entirely fair. Our own Harper Government has shown plainly what it is capable of and more than willing to do. The government sponsored, police responses in Montebello and Toronto should not have occurred in our Canada. And there are many more instances of government repression in our history.
Mr. Harper publicly announced a program of monitoring social media and chat sites to watch for dangerous tendencies and, ‘to correct inaccurate information about the government’. This is ‘Big Brother’ and ‘1984’ with a ribbon tied on it. I fear a government which will import 10,000 additional police and security forces as a pre-emptive move to quell any possible protest in a nation of known peaceful people. I fear a police force which will quietly accept the overtime pay with almost no comment about the abuses which took place. And I fear for the future of a people, who docilely allow the incidents to be swept under the rug and don’t ask for accountability from their leaders, in spite of judicial condemnation of the government. If abuses are not vigorously investigated and protested, they will increase. This is learned behavior!
If interested, see “Secure Communications” page
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