US with new Plans for Mass Surveillance: Crypto as Our Last Line of Defense Against the Increasing Governmental Surveillance Overreach

The (US ????????) government's overreach into the lives of its citizens under the guise of national security is a concerning trend that undermines individual freedom, privacy, and the 1st Amendment. The recent case of leaked Pentagon documents on Discord, which went undetected for weeks, is misused by the Biden administration to consider expanding its monitoring of social media activities and chat rooms (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-intel-agencies-missed-classified-documents-leaked-on-discord-rcna79404). In the case of the leaked Pentagon documents, the intelligence community's desire to prevent future leaks may result in the adoption of invasive surveillance methods. This move raises again important questions about the balance between security and our civil liberties, and it highlights the crucial role that cryptography and cryptocurrencies (e.g. tech like VPNs or Tornado Cash and projects like Monero) play in preserving our privacy.

The US 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, religion, and the press, among other rights. Yet, the government's attempts to monitor online platforms and private chatrooms will erode these freedoms. Although public chatrooms may be considered fair game, law enforcement agencies actually do not have the legal authority to monitor private online chatrooms without a probable cause. Expanding surveillance efforts - e.g. under the guise of national security (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-idUSBRE95910O20130612) - would inevitably risk violating these legal safeguards. The government seems striving to monitor not only our money and spending/saving (with CBDCs and social credit systems) but also wants to follow us on every step online going forward and being able to quickly censor if needed (e.g. https://nclalegal.org/2023/01/the-white-house-covid-censorship-machine/)

Cryptography and cryptocurrencies offer us some tooling to protect our privacy from the ever increasing, invasive government surveillance. By using encryption tools to secure data and communications like VPNs, we can shield our online activities from prying eyes, maintaining control over oit personal information. Similarly, our dear cryptocurrencies provide a level of financial privacy and autonomy that traditional banking systems cannot offer and CBDCs never will. It is clear that the governments have no interest in the proliferation and wide-scale use of these technologies by retail, so we observe hidden and increasingly visible attacks focusing on them as demonstrated with: the Tornado Cash case (https://www.forbes.com/sites/rosemariemiller/2022/10/26/tornado-cash-sanctions-by-us-treasury-draw-outrage-suits-from-crypto-community), attacks on privacy coins (https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/news/dubai-bans-all-privacy-coins), attacks on VPNs via the RESTRICT act (https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/) and attenpts to install chat controls (https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-defend-our-privacy-vote-no-to-chat-control).

Therefore, I can only urge everyone to stay vigilant, push back surveillance agendas and educate as much people as possible about the importance of cash, cryptocurrencies and cryptography as well as the overreach of our governments. //Rant over

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TL;DR: The governments’ increasing tendency to expand its surveillance capabilities in the name of national security is a concerning development that poses a threat. The 1st Amendment and the legal safeguards designed to protect civil liberties must be upheld, and the use of cryptography and cryptocurrencies is crucial in preserving our privacy in an increasingly monitored environment!