Writes Chris Kennedy:

Tragically underreported and disturbingly ignored even by the State Department, the current conditions in Tunisia are hectic and gruesome as its oppressive police state struggles to maintain control in the middle of a violent popular revolution. Amidst the chaos are many lessons to be learned by lovers of liberty throughout the world, but particularly in the U.S., for one specific reason: The lengths to which the RCD went in order to suppress and silence dissent amongst its populace. Public anti-regime demonstrations are illegal in Tunisia, so naturally the voice of public dissatisfaction found a convenient and powerful platform in the Internet.

Here’s where it gets good.

With complete control of the comings and goings of Internet traffic in the country, the government was able to totally shut down the secure https protocol (SSL), forcing all Tunisian users to use the less-secure http protocol in order to log in to their accounts. Utilizing this vulnerability, the government hacked and phished its way into the accounts of popular anti-government activists, shutting them out without their consent or knowledge.

That feeling in the pit of your stomach? Yeah, that’s because it hits just a little too close to home. Remember the calls for an “Internet Kill Switch” by such paragons of freedom as Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins? What we’re witnessing across the pond is nothing less than the Department of Fatherland Security’s cyberspace wet dream. Imagine all notions you might have about Internet privacy and security dashed at the flick of a switch — the very thing the government says these measures are designed to prevent. Another scary thought: With the Patriot Act and the various eavesdropping/wiretapping provisions it contains and has spawned, this might not be far from reality in the U.S.

Anonymous, the web activist group responsible for all those distributed denial-of-service assaults on “anti-WikiLeaks” websites stepped in and “trained” Tunisia’s revolutionary web users on web anonymity and proxy avoidance. Ah, the power of the Internet.

Fueled by unemployment and police state oppression, many took to the streets in full-scale rioting, overwhelming a government that had been fat and happy for decades. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — in office since 1987 — has fled the country, but the corrupt RCD is still in charge, the Prime Minister appointing himself as the new President and promising reform. While many revolutionaries are celebrating, others are wary. “Meet new boss, same as old boss.”

Stay tuned to this one, folks.

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.