Sunday, June 9, 2013

Three Bronx Cheers for President Transparency


Just so irritating when citizens complain about being stripped of their few remaining silly, archaic “rights,” isn’t it? "You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," Obama said. "We're going to have to make some choices as a society."
Sorry, citizens who have no privacy have NO security. False choice, “President Transparency.”
And by the way, the NSA is certainly listening in on any and all phone calls it wants to. Why? Because there's nothing and no one who can stop it, that's why. A government that refuses to punish its own torturers will obviously never punish its agents when they merely eavesdrop on phone calls.
When hunger and brutality really hit home, whenever things get bad enough that protests are organized, the NSA will be listening. And those people will be framed, jailed and stopped. Anyone who poses an obstacle to major corporate interests will be spied upon, intercepted and stopped. But don't worry. "American Idol" will continued unimpeded. The raison d'être for police state surveillance is to insure that 90 percent of the public will NEVER protest anything.
As Jim Jenkins said, "It's paranoia not to trust the NSA? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear? Remember when the FBI attempted to blackmail Martin Luther King with wiretaps? He had something to hide. The fact that he had been unfaithful to his wife. I guess that's fair game these days. Anyone old enough to remember the Church Committee? How about the Bush Administration infiltrating anti-war groups like the Quakers? I can't believe that my Democratic friends have embraced domestic government spying. Will you feel the same when the next Bush is in the White House?"
In between making speeches about how Americans must give up all remaining civil liberties in order to be safe from ubiquitous brown boogeymen bearing bombs, Obama is busy charging journalists who reveal what the government is doing and whistleblowers who expose war crimes with espionage.
So it turns out the effective end of constitutional rights won’t be televised. It’ll be announced by the sound of your door splintering in the dark. Lights out now. Nighty-night.
Charles Pierce says, "Listen very closely, Mr. President, because I voted for you twice and, given the alternatives, I would do so again. OK? Here it is. I... don't... believe... you. "There are 20,000 people working at the NSA. I do not believe they are all holding to the letter of the law. Nor do I think they are allbeing held to the letter of the law by their supervisors. And I think you wereawfully damn glib about why I should believe you, because all of us out herenow live in a world where anonymity, once a right, is now an anachronism." 
We’re being told “everyone already knew” that everybody in America was being spied upon all the time, so no biggie. At the same time, we’re also being told that America’s security has been shockingly damaged because we were told what “everyone already knew.” So which is it? Neither. They’re just trying on cons, seeing which might lull the sheep back to sleep this time.

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