Digital Kill Switches: How Tyrannical Governments Stifle Political Dissent

Posted by freedomforall 3 months, 1 week ago to Politics
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Excerpt:
"“No president from either party should have the sole power to shut down or take control of the internet or any other of our communication channels during an emergency.”—Senator Rand Paul

What’s to stop the U.S. government from throwing the kill switch and shutting down phone and internet communications in a time of so-called crisis?

After all, it’s happening all over the world.

Communications kill switches have become tyrannical tools of domination and oppression to stifle political dissent, shut down resistance, forestall election losses, reinforce military coups, and keep the populace isolated, disconnected and in the dark, literally and figuratively.

As the Guardian reports, “From Ukraine to Myanmar, government-run internet outages are picking up pace around the world. In 2021, there were 182 shutdowns in 34 countries... Countries across Africa and Asia have turned to shutdowns in a bid to control behaviour, while India, largely in the conflict-ridden region of Jammu and Kashmir, plunged into digital darkness more times than any other last year… Civil unrest in Ethiopia and Kazakhstan has triggered internet shutdowns as governments try to prevent political mobilisation and stop news about military suppression from emerging.”

In an internet-connected age, killing the internet is tantamount to bringing everything—communications, commerce, travel, the power grid—to a standstill.

Tyrants and would-be tyrants rely on this “cloak of darkness” to advance their agendas.

In Myanmar, for example, the internet shutdown came on the day a newly elected government was to have been sworn in. That’s when the military staged a digital coup and seized power. Under cover of a communications blackout that cut off the populace from the outside world and each other, the junta “carried out nightly raids, smashing down doors to drag out high-profile politicians, activists and celebrities.”

These government-imposed communications shutdowns serve to not only isolate, terrorize and control the populace, but also underscore the citizenry’s lack of freedom in the face of the government’s limitless power.

Yet as University of California Irvine law professor David Kaye explains, these kill switches are no longer exclusive to despotic regimes. They have “migrated into a toolbox for governments that actually do have the rule of law.”

This is what digital authoritarianism looks like in a technological age."
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Anyone naive enough to feel that the traitors in D.C. would hesitate to cut off all dissent this way?
They already had their conspirators at Google, Facebook, and Twitter do the equivalent to stifle any public on-line objections to forced store closings and forced injections with experimental and known poisonous non-vaccines that they lied about.
D.C. is utterly corrupt. NIFO
CDC is utterly corrupt. NIFO
WHO is utterly corrupt. NIFO
WEF is utterly corrupt. NIFO
Try the traitors and execute the guilty.
SOURCE URL: https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/digital_kill_switches_how_tyrannical_governments_stifle_political_dissent


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