Archive
The Illusion of Privacy: Part II. The Three Layers of Illusion
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
September 12, 2025
✨ This section builds the skeleton: transport-level encryption, metadata exposure, endpoint compromise.
1. Encryption Without Anonymity
HTTPS does one job well: it encrypts the stream of data between your browser and a server. A hacker on the same café WiFi cannot see the words you type or the article you load. But encryption is not anonymity. Your ISP, and by extension state agencies, still know that you connected to akashmanew.com. They may not see which article you read, but they know you were there. For intelligence contractors, this “metadata” is more than enough. Snowden’s leaks showed us that governments didn’t need to read every email — knowing who contacted whom and when was already gold.
2. Metadata as the New Surveillance Currency
Palantir and its competitors thrive on what HTTPS leaves untouched. Connection times, device IDs, location data, purchase histories — each a puzzle piece. Alone, they may seem trivial. Together, they form a mosaic of identity, behavior, and intent. If you read an Akashma News exposé at 8:05 p.m., and your phone pinged a cell tower downtown at 8:07, and you bought a coffee at 8:12 with your debit card, the lock icon has protected nothing of real consequence. Surveillance today is not about peeking into encrypted tunnels — it’s about mapping the shadows around them.
3. Endpoints: Where Encryption Never Reaches
Even the strongest lock is useless if someone watches over your shoulder. Pegasus spyware, and countless less famous siblings, operate at this level. They infect the phone or computer itself, capturing messages before they are encrypted and after they are decrypted. Screenshots, keystrokes, microphone activations — the spyware turns the device into an open book. HTTPS cannot touch this. This is why journalists, activists, and even heads of state have fallen victim: the illusion of privacy evaporates when the compromise begins at the source.
Key Sources
Glenn Greenwald — journalist who worked directly with Snowden and Poitras on the NSA leaks.
Laura Poitras — filmmaker & journalist, co‐recipient of the Snowden documents.
Snowden’s interviews, excerpts in No Place to Hide (Greenwald’s book) and in primary Guardian/Wired/Vanity Fair reporting.
1. “Encryption in transit vs metadata visible”
Snowden said NSA was collecting vast amounts of metadata on US citizens without warrant or specific suspicion.
The Boundless Informant tool (leaked by Snowden) visualized how NSA counted metadata globally — clearly showing metadata was collected and analyzed.
2. “Device compromise (endpoints) & opsec measures Snowden/Poitas/Greenwald took”
In Wired’s “Edward Snowden: The Untold Story,” Snowden describes removing batteries from phones, being cautious about location, being aware of techniques for surveillance.
In Citizenfour (Poitas/Greenwald) and the Vanity Fair “Shadowland of Secrets” article: Snowden communicating via encrypted channels, choosing to meet in Hong Kong, using security‐aware practices.
3. “Greenwald, Poitras have full archives / media roles”
Laura Poitras is one of the initial journalists to receive Snowden’s documents, along with Greenwald. They have said they hold full archives.
The book No Place to Hide by Greenwald details many of the programs revealed and discusses the leaks based on those documents.
What Isn’t Fully Supported (Caveats)
To keep things precise and avoid overclaiming:
“No one can snoop what article they’re reading” is too strong; these sources show metadata is visible and location information can leak through endpoints or device compromise. The sources do not claim HTTPS stops state‐level mass surveillance or endpoint spying.
Snowden’s own statements acknowledge there are trade‐offs, limitations. For example, in his interviews, he said you cannot have perfect security and perfect convenience.
There is no verified public documentation (from Greenwald/Poitras/Snowden) that HTTPS alone stops all forms of surveillance (especially advanced spyware like Pegasus). These claims are inference or extrapolation based on understanding of how technology works, not direct claims in the Snowden archive.
Read the Introduction to The Illusion of Privacy Series
The Role of Independent Thinkers
Part VIII: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The Patriot Act’s Children – Surveillance, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Dissent
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
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