Government Declares Thoughtcrime Real, Orders Bank to Freeze Money For Thinking About Freedom
Telling the truth is terrorism and banks are the new thought police in Iceland, which is pioneering a "pre-crime financial sanctions" against potential whistleblowers.
In a stunning development that George Orwell would find "a bit on-the-nose," Icelandic authorities have perfected a revolutionary system for identifying and neutralizing threats to government secrecy before they occur. The target? A dangerous company called Talk Liberation that threatened society with... transparency.
Iceland's premier financial institution, Islandsbanki (which loosely translates to "We'll Take Your Money Island"), recently pioneered what experts are calling "pre-emptive financial neutralization" by freezing $1 million belonging to Talk Liberation, a tech startup foolishly dedicated to user privacy and whistleblower protection.
"We detected dangerous levels of potential truth-telling," explained Bjorn Sigurdsson, Islandsbanki's Chief Truth Suppression Officer, in a very real and serious interview. "Our algorithms indicated a 78% chance that someone, somewhere might eventually use their platform to reveal something embarrassing about someone important. We simply couldn't take that risk."
The bank initially cited anti-terrorism laws to justify the seizure before pivoting to their more honest position: "Look, the founder knows Julian Assange. What more do you need?"
Talk Liberation founder Suzie Dawson has now been completely "debanked" in both Iceland and her native New Zealand, joining the prestigious ranks of people who have discovered that financial institutions consider "privacy advocacy" and "supporting whistleblowers" to be more dangerous than actual financial crimes.
"We've now entered an exciting new phase of democracy," said one regulatory expert. "Instead of waiting for whistleblowers to reveal corruption and then persecuting them, we can now preemptively destroy anyone who might create tools that could potentially be used by future whistleblowers. It's much more efficient."
In a statement that wasn't actually issued but might as well have been, Islandsbanki explained: "While we did eventually return the money after nine months of holding it hostage, we've made it impossible for the company to function in Iceland. If that's not justice, I don't know what is."
The story highlights the banking industry's long tradition of ethical behavior, from the 2008 financial crisis they definitely didn't cause to their current role as arbiters of who deserves access to the financial system.
Meanwhile, passive citizens continue to ignore these developments, comforted by the knowledge that financial deplatforming only happens to "bad people" and could never possibly be used against journalists, activists, or ordinary citizens who ask too many questions.
When reached for comment, the average citizen said, "I'm sure the bank had a good reason. After all, isn't protecting whistleblowers basically the same as terrorism? Now excuse me, I need to go post about how much I love freedom on social media."
Talk Liberation's legal battle continues, with a September court date that will determine whether banks have the right to cripple businesses they find ideologically inconvenient without explanation or accountability.
In an era where Edward Snowden lives in exile, Julian Assange spent years confined in an embassy and then prison, and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou was the only person jailed in connection with the U.S. torture program (for exposing it, not participating in it), perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that financial institutions now consider "creating tools for transparency" to be an act worthy of financial execution.
*This satirical article was inspired by a real story you can read at Covert Action Magazine.