It’s a well known fact that the blogosphere is really made up from a bunch of niche b’sphere that very rarely; if ever, over lap even in times of distress or importance. If it did then maybe the Katrina debacle might have actually had a powerful group standing up and seeing that the situation today didn’t exist.

Whether it be the political bloggers, the social (gossip) bloggers or the tech bloggers we all play within our own little fiefdoms rarely mixing beyond the occasional conference. Even within each of the major blogging kingdoms there are separate groups with divergent interests. This is especially apparent within the technology b’sphere and it was made abundantly clear to me today when I read a post that forebodes serious breaches of our rights.

The story I am referring to is one posted to the Threat Level blog about a hurried piece of legislation that was signed equally quickly by the President. My first reaction was to post some thoughts of what this legislation meant to not just bloggers of all stripes but to every individual who has a phone or surfs the Internet.

I instead decided to wait and see if something of such importance would be picked up by any of the other major tech bloggers. Well it’s almost just past midnight eastern time and nothing has shown up on any of the blogs I read or even on Techmeme.

So what is this earth shattering event that has irrevocably changed our privacy and the Internet? Well to quote Ryan Singel at Threat Level:

A new law expanding the government’s spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation’s communication networks.  The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.

The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.

Some might suggest not to worry about it as something like this will likely be repealed when a new President comes to office. Please don’t tell my that you really believe that because if you do I want the drugs you are smoking.

What is even worse is that something like this can happen and only one blog in the security b’sphere spoke up. In turn not one of the major blogging media giants; or even any blog in the general tech b’sphere picked up on this blatant attack on our rights.

If there was one thing that should have brought bloggers together - especially those in all parts of the tech b’sphere - it is this. Instead we have more reports on the same old social media bullshit that won’t mean squat. Instead we have the rich Web 2.0′ers whining about not being rich enough.

I know that if I had the money and resources I would start the perfect business of providing off-shore hosting services, offer to move any U.S. and Canadian (because it’ll happen here as well) bloggers domain free of charge and have some of the best support staff available 24/7/365 because the Pandora’s box is open; and thanks to our pre-occupation with being friends with people we don’t even know the government has stripped us of any sense of privacy. 

We only have ourselves to blame - too bad we couldn’t actually work together instead of creating false worlds of social networks that give nothing but a false illusion of making a better world.

What a joke.

[tags]security, Protect America Act, warrentless spying, goodbye privacy[/tags]

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