A decade ago, Julian Assange warned that “we are the last free generation.”
Now, Americans are living in the dystopian reality he once predicted.
And Gabriel Shipton, the brother of Assange, is continuing to sound the alarm, sitting down with BlazeTV host Nicole Shanahan to discuss what has turned into a nearly full-blown surveillance state.
“We are at a tipping point now where it’s not even being hidden,” Shanahan tells Shipton. “It’s actually in clear daylight that the government has every intention to rip away our civil liberties, our constitutional rights. Julian’s watching all of this go down. What does he think?”
“You can look back to his writing, you know, even from 10 years ago, and he was predicting all this, predicting this surveillance even before the Snowden leaks. They knew it existed, but they didn’t have confirmation in black and white from actual leaked information about this NSA spying,” Shipton explains.
“But he’s written about this and, you know, said things like ‘we are the last free generation.’ You know, soon we’re going to be manipulated in more and more subtle ways that we don’t even understand,” he continues.
“And I think this FISA bill, combined with things like, you know, the potential for AI integration with all this surveillance,” he says, before Shanahan chimes in, “Well, it’s already happening.”
“We are very well aware that many government agencies are using AI for censorship and surveillance. I mean, they go hand in hand. They’re not even truly even hiding it after the pandemic,” she says.
“I think generally there’s awareness, but I think there’s an outcry that is being limited and almost herded. I feel like everyone who’s stepping out there and trying to show everybody what’s going on and what’s at stake is being quieted and herded,” she continues.
However, while Assange predicted the surveillance state we currently reside in, he is optimistic about some things.
“I believe he is excited about those independent journalists that are out there doing work. I know he, you know, engages with a lot of independent journalism as much as he can given his limited connection to the outside world,” Shipton says.
“You know, you can draw a line from Wikileaks’ work to this flowering of independent journalism, the loss of confidence in corporate media. And I think that is due to a lot of Wikileaks’ work,” he continues.
“They exposed the corporate media for what it actually was,” he adds.
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