His name is Pete Ashdown, and he is the owner of an ISP firm in Salt Lake City. (Link.) For fifteen years now he’s been refusing to comply with NSA demands for access top his clients. I highlight “fifteen” there because this would take us all the way back to Clinton. Even before the 9/11 false flag attack, NSA had already turned its eyes into our private affairs.
Ashdown is ready to go to jail, but will also comply with legal NSA information requests.
Whether it is a young man resisting a shakedown at a DUI checkpoint, as highlighted in the comments at this post, or a journalist risking her career by questioning the official 9/11 story (if you find one, let me know), we are a country with only a few bright lights in a sea of oppression, thought control, agitprop and fear. I suppose it has always been like this. I imagine the Germans were like this in the 1930’s and later during the Cold War under STASI. I imagine Saudi citizens are under constant surveillance, as are Chinese and Colombians. It is those countries that have the most to fear from their own population who are most extreme in their surveillance efforts.
They ain’t worried about terrorists. Get real. They’re worried about us. It’s sad we give them so little cause for concern.
Piece of Mindful 
the way that kid composed himself was brilliant. if that was me at his age, I would have been stoned and terrified.
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Glory to the little guy standing up to Leviathan.
But maybe some of us In The Know and closer to the top should confront the men behind the machine. How about a million citizens marching on Congress and holding them hostage until they de-fund the NSA? Or marching on David Koch and chopping off body parts until he agrees to quit hiring people to touch our junk? Or putting Jewish bankers in internment camps until they agree to quit wrecking our society? Or terrorizing the Saudi royal family until they leave us alone? You know, confronting real power and making real change.
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On the DUI checkpoint video, it seems common courtesy would dictate one rolls down a window all the way, and answers a reasonable question. If Mr Tomato is lost and asks me for directions, I don’t have to answer, but to foster a community and to help out a fellow man, it seems reasonable that I interact with him in a standard way. This blog is partly about valuing community and mutual help, something that was lacking in that video.
If it is going to be us vs. them, then I have been right all along.
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The kid is following legal advice regarding DUI checkpoints, as (you saw?) they are really looking to make drug busts. The advice is to open the window just a slice to allow communication. If you open it all the way, the officer can stick his head in, sniff, say he smells mj, and force you out so he can do a search. A citizen is not obligated to do anything less charged with an offense – no ID, no search, not to get out of vehicle. The kid was asserting his legal rights. It took courage. You saw how the cops responded.
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The advice is to open the window just a slice to allow communication
Someone’s opinion of the law. Doesn’t seem reasonable under those circumstances.
as they are really looking to make drug busts.
Well, if I’m carrying of course this is a bad thing. But at some level the police are enforcing the will of the community, and needs the cooperation of the community.
But, if 51% of the community wants to ban drugs*, and 49% wants the free flow, I’m still working on how to keep everyone happy. But passive/aggressive behavior at a checkpoint doesn’t seem like the road out.
*or more typically, a strident and active minority
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No – these are our basic rights – a breakthrough n human history. They only exist because people fought for them. The right to be secure in our possessions and free of illegal search and seizure is a big one. Marijuana is illegal for purposes of selective law enforcement, itself a form of tyranny. Someone has to fight this shit.
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We want to be secure in our possessions, but this entails putting up with things like DUI checkpoints and selectively enforcing drug laws. Looks like a trade-off from where I sit.
Your thesis is that the war on drugs etc is gratuitous scare mongering on the part of those in power. Maybe there is something to that, but maybe those in power are genuinely trying to protect productive citizens from a rising class of predators. Maybe we need to install a new power class, or maybe we need a new citizenry. Under the current regime, if we cut out DUI checkpoints, they will just come up with a new affront.
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Guy.. I am not significantly into reading through, but somehow I got to learn lots of articles on your weblog. Its wonderful how exciting it is for me to visit a person very often. –
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