Where did the meme come from that civil disobedience requires you to sit in jail afterwards?

[shanen]

40. Value of publicity

You left out the important aspect that his trial would be completely secret and the issue would be expected to die quietly--like him. His continued visibility outside of prison is an important aspect of why the issues continue to get attention. Every time some rightwing lunatic tries to argue he's not a whistle-blower, it reminds people about the real issues.

By the way, I think it is important to emphasize the real threats of these assaults on our privacy. It isn't just the negative stuff that threatens you. Of course no one is perfect and you can be threatened or even blackmailed with your past mistakes. I'm not sure if there is any solution there, because we are all doomed to live increasingly public lives unless we are as rich, selfish, and even sociopathic as the big dick Cheney.

The stick is threatening, but the carrot is just as effective in removing your freedom. Knowing what you like and your strengths can be used to twist and manipulate you. That's both directly in terms of appealing to what you like, but also indirectly in terms of knowing who to recruit for mediating the manipulation. Your most trusted friends can relatively easily be tricked into helping. It's just a question of where the resources are leveraged.

Freedom is about meaningful and unconstrained choice. If they can control what you know, your choices are not meaningful, and they also can constrain your choices every way from Sunday... Welcome to 1984, though we're running a few years behind.