A  Microsoft executive, Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, has called for a "driver’s license" for internet users. This call was part of the UN strategy to frighten people into worrying about "cyber warfare" and therefore granting the UN (i.e., wannabe world government) the power to regulate individual use of the internet. Imagine! You would need permission from the UN or the feds to surf the web, blog or use email. The government would surely try to regulate content in direct violation of the First Amendment (as if that would bother anybody in the government). The NOI would rule that there was a "compelling interest" in regulating content and, with those magical words, would allow the government to intrude further into your life.

Then there’s the case of Google’s battle with China:

Privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Security Agency (NSA) asking for details on the agency’s purported partnership with Google Inc. on cybersecurity issues.

In a separate action that was also taken today, EPIC filed a lawsuit against the NSA and the National Security Council, seeking more information on the NSA’s authority over the security of U.S. computer networks.

EPIC’s FOIA request relating to Google was filed after a story in the Washington Post about an impending partnership between Google and the NSA on cybersecurity issues.

The Post reported that the NSA and Google are in the process of finalizing an agreement under which the NSA will help Google better defend itself against cyberattacks.

It’s scary that Google apparently initiated the contact with the domestic and foreign spy agency. The FOIA request is very important in determining what Google and the NSA really want to do together. We cannot trust what they say publicly.

With Microsoft and Google getting on the government spy and control bandwagon (so government will friendly to them in terms of regulations and taxes), we need to be fearful that everything we do with electronic technology will be available to the government and that our First and Fourth Amendment guarantees will be further eroded. Though it’s hard to see that the Fourth Amendment (privacy) has any meaning anymore and the First is being ignored by government more and more.

An aside: Hillary Clinton should be happy. In 1998 she proposed that there should be an internet "gatekeeper". Now she’s singing a different tune because of Google’s problem and our undeclared war against China.

This is all being done by creating an atmosphere of fear. It’s what government does when it wants more control and to narrow your rights. Remember Hermann Göring’s remark:

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

So now it’s cyber war, the next chapter in government’s intrusion into your privacy. What can Microsoft, at the government’s bidding, put into its software that you won’t know about and how much information about you can Google hand over to the government without your knowledge, in addition to what the NSA already knows?

We are getting more like the British surveillance state every day.

By the way, just for kicks and giggles, there’s another war brewing that will further curtail our freedoms: Iran. Ain’t democratic imperialism and democratic interventionism grand?