Privacy Wars. Big Brother on steroids: Is it a novel, or is it real?

Privacy Wars. Big Brother on steroids: Is it a novel, or is it real?

PWcoverThumbMy novel Privacy Wars won finalist in 2013 for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award, along with its winning two other National Awards. The story line features “Big Brother” (NSA and IRS) being actively used against critics of the policies of a fictional President of the United States, and the characters in my novel running for their lives when they innocently become “Enemies of the State.”

http://www.johntrudel.com/#pw.

This was fiction …. until it happened….

As my book was in its final edits (June/July 2013), Edward Snowden, a low-level technical person with high-level security clearances, fled the United States and became the target of the biggest manhunt since Osama bin Laden. First he ran to Hong Kong, and finally, after a number of countries refused him sanctuary, he wound up stuck in the Moscow airport, unable to leave. It was like Tom Hanks in that old movie, except this one was real, deadly, and the focus of intense international attention.

realityA few months after my novel came out, Snowden’s revelations of how America’s intelligence community had been shifted from watching foreign enemies to the massive monitoring of private citizens without due process or oversight became public. Concern increased when it was reported that Congress and reporters were also being watched.

The result was high level outrage, and a determination to punish and silence Snowden. This caused conflict between Obama and Putin that made headlines and the top of news cycles. Putin won. He gave Snowden sanctuary.

Snowden, NSA monitoring, CIA overreach, Obama Administration embarrassments, and the fallout and conflict that resulted was the top story in world news for months during the Fall and Winter of 2013. Despite intense efforts on the part of Team Obama to “change the subject” (Alinsky 101), this was the subject of Congressional Hearings (which continue to this day) and news reports.

This topic came up in every media interview and book signing that I did for Privacy Wars.

Kill that 1st Amendment!

Kill that 1st Amendment!

It’s an unnerving experience to craft a Thriller story to entertain, and then watch it unfold in disturbing real world events before the ink is even dry on the page. Yikes. America, the bastion of freedom, is becoming what my A-List Thriller colleague Brad Thor calls the “Total Surveillance State” or “Prisons Without Walls.”

Indeed. It has since been pretty much admitted in testimony to Congress that everything electronic about American Citizens is being monitored and archived.

But wait, there’s more: Shortly after the NSA scandal, egregious conduct on the part of the IRS came to light, with Lois Lerner famously being found to be in Contempt of Congress. It didn’t help matters when the IRS “lost” many records that were under subpoena. IRS targeting of “political enemies” was a second scandal, but the two come together.

It is the IRS who will run ObamaCare, and part of ObamaCare is a massive, shared database with complete records on all who are enrolled. This database will have your health records, your tax records, your financial records, and everything else about you. The Gestapo and old KGB would be envious. This is Big Brother on steroids.

These two scandals are still unfolding along with a number of others. Here are some links to public sources about these two.

IRS

IRS/ObamaCare

National Security becomes politicized

Investigations continue. The scandals continue. There has been a lot of talk, but not much action. My guess is that the issue of Big Brother watching Americans will continue to fester so long as Obama is in office. It is an area that scares the public, and one where both the left and the right have concerns. IRS is hated, NSA is feared, and my novel touched that.

What more can I say about this? Not much, other than, “Read my novel, enjoy it, tell your friends, and do go back and read 1984 again. You might want to also take a look at some of the novels by Brad Thor and Vince Flynn.”

In summary, my novel’s prediction of these huge events got attention and I was asked to comment. What I can say is posted on my Author’s web page, www.johntrudel.com. There you will find clips of a number of interviews with radio hosts, magazines, and even political figures.

Typically, the protocol for these interviews was to first have a conversation with the show’s producer or the official’s Chief of Staff. In all such cases I told them I would answer all questions to the best of my ability, BUT that all my answers would come from public sources, mostly from Congressional Testimony.

When asked why, I said, “Because I don’t want to be living in the Moscow Airport like Snowden.” That usually got a chuckle. But it wasn’t funny, at least not to me.

I usually said as we were prepping for the interview, “You are going to ask me if Snowden is a hero or a Traitor. If you do, this will be my answer: I don’t know him, and I have no idea. But with that said, I’m personally glad that all this came out. It is information that American citizens should know.”

Back then, no one ever asked me that question on-air, but it always came up in the prep. Every time.

In 2015 the topic of privacy got sizzling hot again, due to Congressional action (changing the Patriot Act), Executive action (ignoring the new law), Court rulings, a flood of major data breaches, foreign cyber attacks, the Hillary server debacle and release of Top Secret information, etc. A film about Snowden, Citizen Four, won an Academy Award.

So Privacy Wars comes up again, usually without any prepping. If it does, I now invariably get that question asked on-air. My answer remains the same.

The major concern these days has gone beyond Big Brother watching us. Big Brother is not only dangerous, but also incompetent. Intrusive bureaucracies want to watch us and put us all in silos (Brad Thor was right) which is bad enough. What is even worse, is that Big Brother’s databases are regularly being hacked by America’s enemies and criminals. Link.

I hope you enjoy my book, and I hope that our freedoms and Constitutional Rights survive these events. Thank you for reading.

Note: If you listen to the media interviews for Privacy Wars on my Author’s website, a frequent question was, “How can we be assured our electronic communications are private?” My short answer: “You cannot.”

One Member of Congress reported there is one place where monitoring has been banned — In a Mosque. Whether this Obama EO is still in place, I do not know. I do know that in 2014 Apple and a few others announced cell phones that “can’t be monitored.” I doubt it:

  • It’s a difficult (perhaps impossible) thing to accomplish technically.
  • Big Brother will not allow it. Departing Obama enforcer Eric Holder is pushing for legislation to block such phones before his resignation becomes effective. His replacement has the same position.

June 2019: There has been constant discussion of  improper surveillance of citizens, media, and officials, including an attempted Coup, the Russia Hoax, an effort to depose a duly elected President, President Trump. This effort is known to have involved many high officials in the Obama Administration, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, etc.

Justice is Coming

The interesting drama now is over the many classified documents that were open to all on Hillary Clinton’s “bathroom server.” The person who might blow this wide open is Julian Assange. At present, here is a short summary of the current status.

SpyGate is now the greatest scandal in American history. One key player is Julian Assange.

“Julian Assange dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy for releasing classified documents from Wikileaks revealed possession of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s secret emails, hundreds of them sent by her illegally because they were graded as ‘Confidential’ on her private servers. Hillary has already lied to Congressman Trey Gowdy and been caught about their not being ‘Confidential’. I suspect Julian Assange’s copies were not didacted, like Hillary’s are. It should be interesting to find out which country the Clintons plan to flee to. The Ecuadorians claimed Julian’s wayward cat was partially the reason for his expulsion after five years of living in their Embassy. I assume it was President Trump’s directive and not Julian Assange’s cat that caused it. All of the computers of Assange, along with Clinton’s secret emails were immediately seized, exactly as FBI’s head, Jim Comey’s were, who was immediately ordered out of his office. The danger is that Hillary Clinton did not operate in a vacuum. Bill Clinton had blackmailed a great many politicians on his way up and on his way out, which means many politicians could be exposed in Congressional hearings and prosecuted for felonies. I’ve heard many stories of how evil Bill Clinton was supposed to be, using powerful people, but they seemed too fantastic to believe. Some politicians were supposed to be afraid for their life. Innuendos may soon reveal the truth. Naturally, the Media outlets are busy confusing this entire issue, and culprits like John Kerry have suddenly returned from four trips to Iran, denigrating the President while agreeing to wild stories about Global warming, that I imagine could threaten his skiing trips in Switzerland. Brennan is passing out dossiers on Iran two years after leaving office? Two billion dollars left at Iranian airport from Obama, before leaving office? Many names and illegal actions will soon be revealed in these undidacted secret emails of Hillary Clinton, and the consequences could be the end of the Democrat party.”

Source: Michael Donohue on FB

Also see this Video about the Seth Rich murder. Was Seth Rich the source who gave Assange the Hillary/DNC emails? Many think so. It is disturbing that no one in Congress (not even one Republican) has insisted that this needs a full investigation. Link.

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4 Responses to Privacy Wars. Big Brother on steroids: Is it a novel, or is it real?

  1. Pingback: Is Privacy Wars real? Beyond Big Brother. | Freedom Writers

  2. John Trudel says:

    As Glenn Greenwald, the primary reporter for the Snowden documents said, “There’s no place to hide.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMIrmt9sZyY

  3. John, I shall buy your book. I’m old-fashioned, and will buy it at our Barnes and Noble Book Store, in the Portland, Oregon area. Thanks!

    • John Trudel says:

      Thank you. B&N can get my novels, but they don’t stock them. [Why not is a long story. I’m an Indy author, and the book stores generally only stock the Big 5 publishers.]

      Just ask, and they can order it for you. You can also get my novels in paper or electronically from Amazon. Shipping is free if you are Amazon Prime.

      Our primary home is in Oregon. We’re not there now, but I’m always happy to do book signings as schedules permit. The next one I have scheduled in Oregon is for the AFP group on May 13, 6:30 at the Clackamas County Public Training Center. I’m also doing one at #CAC16 (Author’s Conference) in Bellingham next week.

      Enjoy!!!

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