Akashma Online News

by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News

“You thought the war was over there. But the battlefield was always here—between your screen and your silence.”
— Akashma News, 2025

While bombs dropped on Baghdad, another war was quietly declared—on your privacy, your speech, your right to dissent. Signed under the shadow of 9/11, the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t just a legal document—it was the foundation of the surveillance state, a digital gulag in which every citizen became a suspect.

I. What the Patriot Act Really Did

Mass surveillance of emails, phone records, online behavior.

Warrantless wiretapping under “national security” pretexts.

Secret subpoenas and gag orders to prevent disclosure of monitoring.

Library, banking, and medical records access without cause.

Secret courts (FISA) rubber-stamping spying on Americans and journalists.


What began as a response to terror became a permanent apparatus of population control.

II. From Surveillance to Censorship

After building the tools to watch everyone, the next step was predictable: control what they say.

Fusion centers were set up nationwide to coordinate federal, state, and local data collection—on activists, journalists, and protest groups.

Social media platforms, once seen as free speech zones, began partnering with DHS, FBI, and NGOs to flag, shadow-ban, or deplatform users.

Words like “antiwar,” “whistleblower,” “Palestine,” and “liberty” became algorithmic red flags.


Speech was not outlawed—it was made invisible.

III. Surveillance Capitalism: The Corporate Coup

The government didn’t do it alone. It outsourced the repression to Silicon Valley.

Palantir, Clearview AI, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google built the tools.

In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, funded their growth.

Your GPS, your clicks, your contacts—weaponized into behavioral dossiers.


Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok became soft extensions of the surveillance state.
Dissent is still allowed—as long as it remains ineffective.

IV. Whistleblowers as Enemies of the State

Edward Snowden: Exiled.

Chelsea Manning: Tortured.

Daniel Hale: Imprisoned.

Reality Winner: Isolated.

Julian Assange: Prosecuted for publishing—not committing—a crime.


Their “crime” was showing the American public what their government was doing in secret.

Meanwhile, those who lied America into war?
They sit on boards. They give speeches. They teach at Yale.

V. The Financialization of Fear

Homeland security became a $200B industry.

Surveillance tech is now a top investment sector for defense funds.

Censorship technologies are exported to foreign regimes under the label of “content moderation.”

The dissent industry is now policed by AI moderators, predictive behavior engines, and public-private “disinformation watchdogs” funded by the same agencies that profited from war.

This isn’t safety. It’s privatized tyranny.

VI. 20 Years Later: The War Comes Home

The gear from Iraq showed up in Ferguson.
The drones from Afghanistan now patrol the U.S. border.
The surveillance tools developed in Gaza monitor student protests on U.S. campuses.

The Patriot Act was never meant to end terrorism.
It was meant to end unregulated democracy.

VII. Conclusion: Liberty Didn’t Die, It Was Outsourced

The Patriot Act’s children are all around us:

The algorithm that censors a protest post.

The drone that flies above a city council meeting.

The data broker who knows more about your child than you do.


We were told this was to keep us safe.

But safety isn’t the absence of freedom.
It’s the presence of dignity, voice, and truth.

And those were the first casualties of a war we never declared—but were drafted into anyway.

Reflection: Nixon’s Ghost in the Server Farm

“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”   — Richard Nixon 1977

Frost: So, what in a sense you’re saying is that there are certain situations and the Huston
plan or that part of it was one of them where the president can decide that it’s in the best
interest of the nation or something and do something illegal.
Nixon: Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.
Frost: By definition –
Nixon: Exactly … exactly… Congress.gov

Watergate once shocked a nation. Wiretaps. Break-ins. Surveillance on journalists and political opponents. A paranoid president brought down for using intelligence tools against perceived enemies.

Today, that legacy has been industrialized.

Everything Nixon did in secret is now codified in law:

Mass surveillance.

Journalist tracking.

Suppression of leaks.

Weaponization of “national security.”

But Nixon wasn’t just villainy. He also gave the nation:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),

Landmark clean air and water legislation,

Public school desegregation enforcement,

Diplomatic overtures to China,

And even proposed universal basic income.

His contradictions are America’s contradictions.

And in today’s age—after the Patriot Act, PRISM, and algorithmic censorship—Nixon wouldn’t be impeached. He’d be in charge of cybersecurity.

Part IX: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The Archive of Resistance – Building the People’s Historical Memory