Thanks to Ed Snowden, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ron Wyden and a few others, the NSA’s anti-constitutional and illegal “bulk collection” of Americans’ “metadata” may end Sunday. Yes, the Stasi-on-steroids will no longer be able to tell how long I talked to my dad and where I was during the conversation, which restaurant has my reservation for tonight’s dinner, and what ophthalmologist I’m seeing, so to speak.
I’m not sure how capturing this incredibly mundane information protects the ol’ Homeland, but the usual suspects are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the NSA’s “authorization”–by which they mean Congressional permission since the Constitution completely unauthorizes such tyranny–to know everything about everyone everywhere all the time. And oh, my, the dire consequences of allowing this totalitarianism to “lapse!” Seek shelter and cower in fear lest the Stasi quit its spying: “‘We’re in uncharted waters,’ one official said.” Notice the anonymity. “‘We have not had to confront addressing the terrorist threat without these authorities. And it’s going to be fraught with unnecessary risk.'”
Actually, you nameless nitwit, “we” have “addressed the terrorist threat without these authorities” for much of our history. Native Americans fought in terrorist fashion against those encroaching on their lands–but no “officials,” anonymous or otherwise, suggested espionage against everyone everywhere in response. (Though the solution they did propose was equally satanic: “reservations” whose inhumanity inspired Hitler’s concentration camps.)
A second voice from behind the curtain chimed in: “Letting the bulk collection program go dark even for a few days is ‘playing national security Russian roulette,’ said another official, and ‘hoping that we don’t have an instance where the FBI needs [the data] to do a national security investigation.”
Yeah, it’d be a pity if the Ross Ulbrichts out there could actually connect eager customers with the products they seek. I’m scared; how ’bout you?
Meanwhile, each article I’ve seen on the NSA’s expiring powers, no matter how slanted and horrific the forecast of impending doom, earns readers’ derision. Many of them call for the agency’s complete abolition rather than merely allowing a bit of its wickedness to die. Americans overwhelmingly reject the NSA, yet Our Rulers and their lackeys in the corporate media insist on preserving it.
Keep it up, you traitorous numbskulls. And why not make a donation to Rand’s presidential campaign while you’re at it? Put your money where your mouths are, because for sure you’re improving his chances.
1:31 pm on May 29, 2015