We fully expected this. It’s in our past and now is coming to our present and future. The Total Awareness Society or Big Brother. Enjoy whatever leftover of freedom you may still have, because it is coming to an end. By 2015. This is how it starts. The article “G20 to share tax information by 2015” by the BBC News outlines just the tip of the iceberg. The message is clear. G20 to the World: you can’t run and you can’t hide.
This new initiative by the G20 group of countries (or the Powerful R-US club) has determined that you have too much freedom and therefore it needs to be culled. Starting in 2015 they will force all banks from anywhere in the world to automatically submit your full banking records to them.
Of course, they will portrait this intolerable interference into our privacy as tax evasion fighting. Bad, bad big business. We will go after them. They are not paying their “fair” share of taxes. Now, before we go any further, we will remind you of the multiple rationales as to why a taxation system is irrational, authoritarian, unfair and counterproductive. Just review our articles Taxed to death No just into slavery and in Those Bastards - The Rich People.
What is the reality of this automated data transfer? In plain and simple words, any of the G20 will know everything that is to know about your financial records. They will know not only how much money you earned, but where you spent it, when and with whom. What are your preferences, likes and dislikes. Where have you been and for how long. What did you do there. And anything else that can be deduced from financial transactions.
Your privacy is finally, utterly and definitively dead. There is nowhere to run (the entire world has been polluted) and there is nowhere to hide (there are no secrecy laws any longer).
If you truly believe that this initiative is for taxation purposes only, you are an idiot. We are very sorry to say. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The surveillance society is here.
Are we saying the sky is falling? Yes. Because it is.
How do we know this? Because as we told you in our article Argentina is the future it has happened before. In Argentina all financial transactions are automatically transmitted to government organizations in real time. They know everything that it is to know about you.
But wait, it does not stop there. Every other piece of information even remotely related to, or connected with, the government is harvested. For example, about two years ago a Buenos Aires city-wide bus card was implemented by the government. The selling point? No more coins required. The catch? Although the cards worked as a pre-paid cash cards, they were personal. Now, why would the card need to be personal? Why couldn’t you pay with the same card for you and your wife, for example? After a number of complaints the truth surfaced: the government wanted to track the population.
Still don’t believe us? Because of the constant state of economic disaster (disarray is being too politically correct) the government of Argentina instituted a halt to currency exchanges. You were no longer able to buy USD or EUR or any other “stable” currency. The few people who still could, were only allowed minor quotas based on their entire and current financial history.
Now consider this. If a basket case of a banana republic such as Argentina is capable of setting-up and running an efficient Total Awareness System, what do you think will happen when the G20 get into the game? How far do you think they will go with unlimited resources?
Think in terms of a blend between the NSA (National Security Agency) and KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti = Committee for State Security) on steroids. Anything digital anywhere in the world will be at their fingertips. Not a shred of privacy will remain.
And for what? The bottom line is that all of this is to ensure that politicians remain in their jobs. No, it won’t increase benefits we get from increased taxation because politicians will waste it. Yes, it will decrease economic activity because less capital will be available. No, you won’t be safer because most terrorist groups have switched to informal ways of transferring money, including cash long time ago. Yes, you will be subject to legal blackmail by bureaucrats who will have all your life in a file. By default, no warrant required.
Remember, you heard it here first.
Today is a very sad day indeed. Today whatever was left of our freedom is dead.
It was fun while it lasted. Now we have to prepare for the long winter ahead.
When your sons and grandsons ask what were you doing when this happened, tell them the truth, don’t be a coward: nothing. Yes, it will be your fault. Comfortable yet? We sincerely hope not. It was your choice and you blew-it.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
