Anonymous

You’re free, until They decide you aren’t

You are free. That is what they say. That is what all dictators claim. You are free, as we take all of the information that you have, thoroughly investigate it, and disseminate it. After all, if you are truly a good citizen, one who has never stepped out of the line we constructed, what do you have to hide?

You are free, they say, as they send you to prison for the rest of your life, for stealing what you had never actually stolen, and charging you for something you never profited by. You are free, they say, as they tell you what to think and how to feel, as they filter the news in a way that leaves them satisfactory. You are free, they say, when they send you to work for the rest of your life, to pay for a debt you never truly incurred. You are in control, they say, as these faceless men who promise freedom open their hands and recieve payment from other faceless men, faceless men who squeeze their income from you.

Everything is okay, they say, as they take the money that you give them and use it to send your brother, your son, your father, your mother, your sister, your daughter, your cousin, your uncle or your aunt, or even you, thousands of miles away to butcher many innocents in the hopes of catching few criminals. They say your thoughts are valued, when none of your petitions bear fruit, when all of the protest that you give is for naught. They say that you may act freely, when they tell you who to love and how to love them, when they say what society expects of you, and punish you for doing otherwise. They say you have power, when they devote every second of their lives to taking it away from you, when they lie and decieve you, when they make laws dedicated to undermining your rights. They claim that you are free, and move to stop their own statements. And the worst part of it all is, you let them do so.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act are both laws with loose language which, instead of protecting your rights, will take your rights for the benefit of those who see you as nothing but cattle, corporations who hoard money for the sake of having more money. They shelved these laws, simply postponing them, and immediately followed them up with OPEN, the third in a series of laws for the supression of our rights. While we fought with these bills, however, the US Government had already ratified into law the Anti Counterfeit Trade Agreement, a treaty which is much, much worse. It is too late for the United States, unfortunately, but across the Atlantic, Europe is under seige by ACTA, and it is blowing its way through Europe like a horde. Poland has been claimed, but if we fight now, if we, the young, the ones held down by the Old World, filled with Old Ideas about how to run a new, more free world, if we rise up, we shall turn back the tide of opression, and we shall emerge in a free world. Petitions will not help. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to strike, to fight for the liberties that are denied to us.

We gain nothing by doing nothing, and we lose everything by doing nothing. If Europe falls, the whole world will follow. Keep it alive. Do not be forgiving. Do not be forgetful. What you do know can save you, what you don’t know can condemn you.