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We’re paranoid not because we have grandiose notions of our self-importance, but because the facts speak for themselves.

Here’s our short list of nine reasons that Wired readers ought to wear tinfoil hats, or at least, fight for their rights and consider ways to protect themselves with encryption and defensive digital technologies.

We know the list is incomplete, so if you have better reasons that we list here, put them in the comments and we’ll make a list based off them.

Until then, remember: Don’t suspect a friend; report him.

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Members of the Amish community in three states have been frightened by recent hair-cutting attacks in Ohio, making fearful calls to authorities and arming themselves with pepper spray and shotguns, a sheriff said.

Splitters!

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Eighteen-year-old Emma Sullivan never thought her tweet about a field trip would be seen by Gov. Sam Brownback. The Shawnee Mission East High School senior went to the Capitol and heard Brownback speak. She didn’t like what she heard.

“I don’t agree with a majority of the things that he is trying to pass,” said Sullivan.

Sullivan tweeted her thoughts about what she wanted to do during the speech.

Sullivan’s tweet stated: "just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

Sullivan said she ended up in the principal’s office the next day.

“He explained to me that someone from Brownback’s office got a hold of it and sent it to someone in charge of the district,” said Sullivan.

She said her principal wants her to write an apology to Brownback.

Governor Brownback, welcome to the Streisand effect. Now grow the fuck up. Oh, and principal, you too.

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One of the most striking – and disturbing – trends of recent years has been the assumption by the copyright industries that protecting their intellectual monopolies outweighs the rights of the public.

This can be clearly seen in the French HADOPI and British Digital Economy Act, where the identities of alleged file-sharers may be handed over by ISPs simply upon accusation by the copyright holders – no court orders required. "Innocent until proven guilty" goes out of the window simply because the music and film industries have resisted keeping up with the changes that the Internet has brought to practically every sector. They seem to regard themselves as exempt from the march of progress, and deserving of special laws that protect their old business models based on assumptions that no longer hold.

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As can be seen from this, the demand was extraordinary: that all P2P traffic be monitored, checked and the potentially infringing traffic blocked. Leaving aside whether it would even be possible technically to carry out such an inspection and blocking in real time, it is clearly a vast assault on the public’s privacy online.

Fortunately, the European Court of Justice agrees:

In its judgment delivered today, the Court points out, first of all, that holders of intellectual-property rights may apply for an injunction against intermediaries, such as internet service providers, whose services are being used by a third party to infringe their rights. The rules for the operation of injunctions are a matter for national law. However, those national rules must respect the limitations arising from European Union law, such as, in particular, the prohibition laid down in the E-Commerce Directive on electronic commerce under which national authorities must not adopt measures which would require an internet service provider to carry out general monitoring of the information that it transmits on its network.

In this regard, the Court finds that the injunction in question would require Scarlet to actively monitor all the data relating to each of its customers in order to prevent any infringement of intellectual-property rights. It follows that the injunction would impose general monitoring, something which is incompatible with the E-Commerce Directive. Moreover, such an injunction would not respect the applicable fundamental rights.

It is true that the protection of the right to intellectual property is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. There is, however, nothing whatsoever in the wording of the Charter or in the Court’s case-law to suggest that that right is inviolable and must for that reason be absolutely protected.

In the present case, the injunction requiring the installation of a filtering system involves monitoring, in the interests of copyright holders, all electronic communications made through the network of the internet service provider concerned. That monitoring, moreover, is not limited in time. Such an injunction would thus result in a serious infringement of Scarlet’s freedom to conduct its business as it would require Scarlet to install a complicated, costly, permanent computer system at its own expense.

What is more, the effects of the injunction would not be limited to Scarlet, as the filtering system would also be liable to infringe the fundamental rights of its customers, namely their right to protection of their personal data and their right to receive or impart information, which are rights safeguarded by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. It is common ground, first, that the injunction would involve a systematic analysis of all content and the collection and identification of users’ IP addresses from which unlawful content on the network is sent. Those addresses are protected personal data. Secondly, the injunction could potentially undermine freedom of information since that system might not distinguish adequately between unlawful content and lawful content, with the result that its introduction could lead to the blocking of lawful communications.

Consequently, the Court finds that, in adopting the injunction requiring Scarlet to install such a filtering system, the national court would not be respecting the requirement that a fair balance be struck between the right to intellectual property, on the one hand, and the freedom to conduct business, the right to protection of personal data and the right to receive or impart information, on the other.

Accordingly, the Court’s reply is that EU law precludes an injunction made against an internet service provider requiring it to install a system for filtering all electronic communications passing via its services which applies indiscriminately to all its customers, as a preventive measure, exclusively at its expense, and for an unlimited period.

Let me freeze-frame that for you:

Here are the iPhone and the Optimus browsers side by side:

“LG — None of us actually use our own phones, so we don’t spot mistakes like this until it’s too late.”

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The key trick of Endless War is to permanently maintain two contradictory official premises: (1) we’re on the verge of Victory!; and (2) the threat is grave and we cannot let up. Without both of those premises, the citizenry will wonder why endless war is necessary or wise. That’s been the dual-track propaganda that has sustained the Drug War for four decades and counting (yes, we’ve been waging this war for 40 years, but we’re making real progress, but the threat is still so severe that the war must continue into the foreseeable future), and it has been and continues to be the core propaganda that fuels the Terror War. Hence, (1) we have made Al Qaeda “operationally ineffective” and (2) they “will remain a major security threat for years.”

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C. Crews TownsendAutomated ticketing vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) filed suit Tuesday against Knoxville, Tennessee for its failure to issue tickets for turning right on a red light — and that is costing the company a lot of money. A state law took effect in July banning the controversial turning tickets, but the Arizona-based firm contends the law should not apply to their legal agreement with the city, which anticipated the bulk of the money to come from this type of tickets.

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ATS asked the Chancery Court for Knox County to declare the right turn law unconstitutional because it discriminates against traffic camera companies.