Ian Clarke has decided — in the wake of Mike Hawash being railroaded into copping a “terrorism” plea for donating money to the wrong nonprofit — that he must leave the US. I share his frustration and his anxiety. Sure, we’re both white, educated technical immigrants, and thus relatively well-insulated from the excesses of the US’s new immigration scapegoating, but every time I hear a story about a fellow immigrant to the US being terrorized by the immigration system, I get my own case of horrors.
Ian is the co-inventor of Freenet, an important piece of software devoted to enabling citizens of oppressive regimes to retreive information from all over the world: this goal is not only lauded by civil liberties cranks like me, but by the State Department and the Voice of America, which is actively funding research into this, as a way of spreading samizdata to every corner of the earth.
America is losing an important thinker and toolsmith in Ian (and no doubt, many other Ians are being scared off without the same fanfare). It’s a shame that he violated Godwin’s Law when he wrote his goodbye letter, as it gives those who would distract us from the real issue here a handy red herring to toss into the fray, i.e., pointless arguments about the appropriateness of a comparison to Nazi Germany.
As an Irish citizen living in the US – I have decided that it is time to leave this country – it is starting to look, smell, and act as Germany did during the 1930s. I wish you Americans luck in regaining civilized justice in your broken country, if not, I hope that the EU will be accepting of political refugees from this brave but failed experiment.
(via Infoanarchy)