I've said before that tyranny requires control of information, and that without that one very vital piece, no tyranny is possible. You might think current events show otherwise, but if you do, I have to ask, what exactly are you judging it against? I ask this, because I do hear a lot of people in various forums discussing how repressed things are, how bad things are, what with all the police brutality, a hung up congress, the threat of yet another war, and a trade agreement so bad that even Rush Limbaugh agrees with Elizabeth Warren that it should not be passed until it is able to be evaluated by the public. They look at all these things, and they see that it looks like "Big Brother" is not only winning, but might already have won.



Except... seen from my perspective, they would be entirely wrong, because they are looking at the wrong things.

I want you to recall the recent events that led to a riot in Baltimore. Freddie Grey wasn't the first victim of a "rough ride", but he was the first one that most of the nation probably heard of. No matter what the outcome, the important thing to ask yourself is this: Don't you think the police would be a lot happier about the whole thing if it had STAYED a secret?

Obviously, before Freddie Grey, it was so little a deal that it was routine. A joke. A little "revenge" against a "crim" for all the BS that officers have to cope with every day. It happened all the time, and despite several deaths, and numerous crippling injuries, I'd be willing to bet prior to Grey, you hadn't heard of it before. You probably didn't hear about the "Black Site" building in Chicago where they held prisoners without due process. You probably haven't heard about a man pepper-sprayed to death while tied to a chair in Fort Myers Florida, either.

Nick Christie didn't really seem to raise much notice in 2009 when, after suffering a mental breakdown, he was arrested, had his medications locked in his truck, and thrown into Lee County Jail, an establishment I have a regrettable familiarity with as a temporary resident.

To be blunt, I spent six days locked into the same ward where Christie was, in a cell so covered in pepper spray that the white walls were a bright orange. My cell was right next to that restraining chair he was strapped to. Six days of my skin burning, eyes burning, and mouth on fire, and I never got sprayed once. But that guy they had strapped into that chair when they tossed me into that cell got sprayed at least five times while he was suffering through what sounded like a delusional episode, because he couldn't stop screaming. I'm positive the pepperspray didn't help, nor did the officer who told him that if he didn't stop, he was going to spray the entire can right in his eye. The entire ward was begging him to stop screaming because each time he got sprayed, the fumes filled our cells. But not once did anyone ask the cops to be less abusive, because we all knew we'd be the next one in that chair.



If you find that disturbing to read about, imagine how I felt laying there naked, on fire, having a hard time breathing, listening to exactly what would happen to me if I protested the conditions I was in. Then imagine the shudder that went up my spine less than a year later, when I read that bit of news for the first time, but not from any "local" news source. It made me wonder what had happened to that guy. He was taken away on the fourth day when I was taken down, wearing just a nylon vest and leg irons, to see the judge.

Don't believe me? Think I'm over dramatizing things? I really wish I was, but that's not an uncommon reaction. In fact, it's the one I've come to expect so thoroughly that less than a month after I got out I stopped even trying to tell anyone about my experiences. The casual brutality wasn't "news." Not enough people knew about what went on behind that brick wall of the "Justice" center to hold any of those officers accountable for their treatment of inmates. Not till Christie died, and the story got on the national news.

Control of information. Veils of secrecy. Shadows in which to hide. How many other prisoners in that chair died before Christie? Was that man I spent four days next to one of them? I may not ever know, but because Christie's story got out, maybe fewer of them will happen in the future. When it's all finally settled, maybe an incremental change might happen. All because a tiny little ray of light got into a fortress of darkness, and caused havok. Maybe it wasn't enough, but it was still more than had existed before.

And don't get me wrong, none of my experiences made me think that all police are bad people, because they are not. But secrecy breeds unaccountability, and unaccountability breeds excess and abuse. Being a policeman is a very difficult job, dealing with some very difficult people, and I can understand the levels of frustration that lead to such excess all too well. But that still does not justify it. Our police, intelligence agencies, military and so forth deal with some very serious threats to our wellbeing, but that does not mean we can simply allow them to become monsters as bad if not worse than those they fight. Nor are my experiences the point, other than to illustrate that this kind of behavior is not only routine, but until recently, so commonplace that even those suffering from this behavior are often forced to silence by a wall of indifference or disbelief.



But... that is changing.

Don't believe me if you wish, but what I see when I hear about all these various instances of police abuse, NSA overreach, riots, and even things like the furor over the TPP trade deal is not one case after another of "Big Brother" in action. Instead, what I see is a bunch of leaks springing up all over the place, letting the light shine in on a formerly shadowy and hidden place of unaccountability. I see one unaccountable person or organization after another suddenly being unearthed from under their rock of secrecy and blinking in the sudden light. And I am seeing it happen more and more frequently. It's not that these daily stories of one abuse after another is about a new phenomena, because they are so routine that the people committing them are shocked to find themselves being held to account, it's that the carefully built walls of public ignorance are ever so slowly beginning to collapse under a relentless assault of personal cameras and the ease of sharing those pictures and videos on the internet.

The veils are growing harder and harder to maintain. Sure, there's a long, long way yet to go. Yes, a bitter struggle still lies before us. Yes, far too many people are so bogged down in thinking there is nothing that can be done, and that the oppressive boot of the Tyrant is about to come down, but one pinprick of light at a time, the unaccountable darkness of secrecy is being replaced by light.

The utter control over information that once existed, the complete ability to prevent the awareness of the abuses hidden in the shadows by the formerly unaccountable is being shaken. Sure, there are lies being told, cover ups being attempted, blame shifting all over, but the fact remains that one little step at a time, things that those in "power" would prefer to keep hidden are being revealed. And it's NOT GOING TO STOP, because it's getting easier and easier to share information. Every day, a few hundred more people get the ability to record the world around them, and every day, new ways to share those records are created.

The Surveillance Wars are only beginning, but there is one thing that is already certain. "Big Brother" isn't winning.