(Background: as you may or may not be aware, earlier in the year the US Department of Homeland Security began seizing domain names of various filesharing websites. Suddenly the agency tasked with protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks was now seizing domain names to combat copyright infringement. Without further adieu, I bring you “First they came for the file-sharing websites….)

First, they came for the file-sharing websites, because they were infringing on copyright. (I didn’t care, because I didn’t share files).

Then, they came for the illegal offshore pharmacies, because they were facilitating the import of dangerous generic pharmaceuticals that massively undercut the name brand companies. (I didn’t care because I didn’t buy generic drugs)

These first choices may have seemed odd, because there were far worse things out there on the internet to go after. However, since nobody cared too much about the file-sharing sites and the illegal generic pharmacies, they figured it was safe to take things up a notch….

So even worse things were gone after…..

Next, they came for the terrorist websites. And since criticizing the government was itself considered an act of terrorism, it meant the end for everything ranging from WikiLeaks to LewRockell.com (I didn’t mind, because I didn’t follow those websites).

By now, the economic malaise that began in the first decade of the new century was well into its second decade and the culprit for this was clearly known to be financial speculators, short sellers and contrarians. So then they came for the websites that disseminated unofficial economic data. Bye bye ShadowStats, Zerohedge and a whole host of others. (But I didn’t care, because I was still sore from losing all my money in the housing bubble crash)

But “illegal dissent” was still rife on the internet (perhaps even more so, for some reason….)

Because constitutionalists, legal scholars and other dangerous cranks were sewing dissent and challenging the actions of Homeland Security, they came for the websites that facilitated “criminal online assembly”, “unlawful collusion” and “non-sanctioned collaboration”. That was the end of Facebook, Twitter and a host of others. (Not that I minded, I was never much into all those “social” websites…)

Then they needed to  do something about websites that provided “tools to access criminal content”.

That’s when they came for Google. (That was ok, I had all the stuff I accessed bookmarked anyway)

Then they came for my neighbor’s website, because they said his blog was pernicious and unauthorized. (He was kind or weird, so it didn’t really bother me).

Finally, they came for me. (And nobody else cared)

Because nothing had stopped them before and they could do whatever they want.

(Originally posted on the easyDNS Blog)