Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The State may have started the ball rolling on bringing an end to Bitcoins in America with Iowa based startup Dwolla. The virtual crypto-currency has been a thorn in the government’s side ever since the currency crossed the billion dollar mark. People have been operating businesses outside of regulation which is apparently only allowed by Wall Street.

The FBI has long been searching for a way to bypass the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which they have claimed makes their job difficult, increasingly so in the information age. Previously the FBI just broke the law and hoped it would not get caught. Now the agency wants a patina of legality to cover its transgressions against liberty.

In a free society the government is transparent and citizens have privacy – in America the situation is reversed. The government is allowed to invoke secrecy whenever it likes as the citizenry gradually lose all their privacy. And now a government task force spearheaded by the FBI wants to take what remains of privacy in America. Upset by technological innovation and people doing things they can’t easily spy on, the FBI wants broader authority to force companies like Facebook and Google to give them user information.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself and we are apparently very afraid. The ever mutating concept of “homeland security” has garnered more public funds since 9/11 than President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Pretty amazing, who knew fighting phantoms could be so expensive?

If you are going to have an extremely unequal society, you better have a police state. And guess what? We do. New documents received by the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund reveal that the Department of Homeland Security routinely spies on peaceful activists as a matter of policy.

Ira “Gus” Hunt, the CIA’s Chief Technology Officer, gave a revealing presentation at GigaOM’s Structure: Data conference where he outlined the CIA’s approach to collecting data from the public. The approach as outlined is a recipe for a police state.

As the Obama Administration continues to expand the policies of the Bush Administration the newest theater of the War on Terror is your checking account.

We don’t want the smoking gun to be a 404 message. Recently the White House and Pentagon have kicked their program to terrorize sow fear into the general population with the threat of “cyberterrorism” into high gear. In fact, now the cyber threat is a bigger threat than actual terrorism. Some even insist that instead of allowing the phantoms to duel it out for budgetary relevance the nightmares can be synthesized to provide a great excuse for the government to attempt to control speech on the internet.

Senator Rand Paul is holding a filibuster on President Obama’s refusal to deny he has the authority to kill Americans on American soil without due process.

The War of on Terror continues with a new grave threat – people writing things on the internet. The government is now trying to find ways to counter “online radicalization to violence” a phrase so broad it could mean practically anything.