It’s not strangely alarming, it is obviously alarming and for good reason.
Take this seriously and get prepared. It’s not a drill, and it’s not something that the next administration is going to roll back, whoever ends up winning. You can’t vote your way out of this.
In the future, privacy and tech sovereignty will be a strictly offline affair.
Stock up on old computers, maybe small cheap SFF/NUC models. You will want replacements on hand as well as some to hand out to trusted friends. Don’t forget to get spare drives, used is fine considering the price right now.
Download and archive (on durable media) ISO, source code, and documentation of simple, durable operating systems that can be easily maintained and modified. I would suggest OpenBSD and a few Linux distributions. If you’re not a skilled programmer I would suggest learning the basics. Make sure you get any software packages you’ll need as well.
Mirror the source code of applications like mail servers/clients, UUCP, NNCP, Nostr servers/clients, and any other tools you find that would be useful for storing and later transmitting or copying data opportunistically. Think back to the early days of the internet; the dialup/BBS model is very apt. You want to be able to do work offline, then either connect and exchange info briefly or pass data offline via sneakernet.
Get some bulk micro SD cards. Get into packet radio.
Make friends and start building a network. Offline.
Take this seriously and get prepared. It’s not a drill, and it’s not something that the next administration is going to roll back, whoever ends up winning. You can’t vote your way out of this.
In the future, privacy and tech sovereignty will be a strictly offline affair.