Photo Courtesy of Wired/Rupert Ganzer/Flickr
I’ve been following the news ever since Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor, dropped NSA Leaks, as they call it now, on our collective consciousness. There followed the back and forth salvos between the civil rights and privacy advocates and the equally indignant US Intelligence community who staunchly wave their patriotic flag to every Jane and Joe.
If there is one thing that has planted an unsightly scarlet letter on the Obama Administration, it’s this whole affair. Yes, we know it started even before this administration. Yes, it was in response to a horrific event in September 2001. A lot of things have happened since then, all in the name of national security, protecting the American public, its land and its waters, and therefore, this is all in the efforts to preserve the freedom of every American. The so-called, “American way of life.” Well, we have been made privy to information that the very thing we are trying to promote and protect, this freedom we so dearly value, is being sacrificed wantonly by some sweeping all-encompassing directive from higher up.
At today’s speech at the Justice Department, Mr. Obama walked us through the birth of the NSA under then President Truman in 1952 as the “organization within the U.S. Government responsible for communications intelligence activities.”
Well, with today’s technology, it is much easier to go overboard. Has the government overreached its powers? Has collecting this “metadata” unselectively, almost obscenely, protected the country more? Or has it fed the intrusive and prying tendencies of some paternalistic groups? Has Big Brother been in our lives all along then?
The POTUS has announced two changes with regards the NSA: That the Metadata would transition to be stored outside U.S. Intelligence organizations and that the NSA or any other U.S. Intelligence agency would have to obtain permission from a judicial body or appointee before they can take a look at whatever collected data there is.
Harrrumph! Is this just window dressing? Is this an appeasement? I know that the Law Professor in Mr. Obama knows the law like the back of his hand. I can only hope this is just the beginning of the changes.
And what if a private organization maintains the gargantuan information? Will it be used for more ads hurled at all of us consumers? I can’t help but wonder if some entrepreneur out there will find a way to make a buck out of this.
And what of the likes of Chancellor Angela Merkel? Will they stop tapping her personal cell phone too?
If it’s such a great tool, why did it not prevent Benghazi or the Boston Marathon bombing?
Is it really just Metadata, which is ‘only” the log of the phone number called, date and time of call? Really? Really? No one is recording the conversations or the text messages? Wait! Metadata is by itself very revealing already. More than conversations or text.
I have not seen anyone burning the flag lately to show displeasure over our rights being trampled on.
Well said, I can’t believe I’m not getting notifications of your posts. Hence why I am liking and commenting on so many at once (as I’m sure you’ve noticed!) And I’m glad you raised the point about Benghazi and the Boston Marathon bombing, because its extremely relevant and only the top of the iceberg. The FBI itself claimed during the height of the “domestic wiretapping” scandal that these measures did nothing to help them, that they already had suspected terrorists under surveillance, and this only flooded their offices with hours and hours of useless information.
What’s more, men like George Tenet (former head of the CIA) and Richard Clarke (former head of the NSA) – both of whom were “retired” by W. – have proven through their testimonies that none of these measures were needed to prevent 9/11. They knew who the hijackers were and had more than a fair estimate of what they were doing and when it was going to happen. All that was needed was for them to be able to do their jobs, which they could not do because of the incompetence and negligence of their immediate bosses – W., Rumsfeld and Rice – because they did not trust “Clinton-era advisors” and refused to meet with them.
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At the rate we’re going, we’d need a miracle to fix our government. Or an apocalypse of sorts!
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Were he alive today, I’d like to think Thomas Payne would be proud of posts like this.
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At his literary coffee house?
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of course!
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These authors, Orwell and Huxley, maybe they understood better than our politicians where all this is leading us into.
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Some people, especially from the conservative side of politics, treat the whole affair as a joke.
1. If you haven’t done any wrong you don’t need to worry.
2. They are gathering so much information that they will never read your e-mail.
You know the Australian secret service (ASIO) has been spying even on the wife of the Indonesian President.
When I was a boy we learnt a song “Die Gedanken sind frei (The thoughts are free)” here is the translation of the first verse:
Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They fly by like nocturnal shadows.
No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them
with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!
But it seems modern technology has given some people the means to lock up our thought forever. I pity Barack Obama he seemed a decent man, but those people in the NSA have broken him. National security is now the new banner we all have to follow.
Peter
PS. I’m sure this comment will have now a permanent place on a hard disk at the NSA
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Love your comment, Berlioz, though unfortunately, yes, now captured on the hard disk.
A great post here. It has really got out of hand, and so many are letting it go. Extraordinary.
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Yes, Berlioz, your comments are now permanently archived!
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I want to reblog this! Thanks for this well thought out post, dear Mary-Ann.
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Reblogged this on auntyuta and commented:
I hope a lot of people are going to read this.
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Thanks Aunty. It seems that our world has become what we had read — Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, and the like.
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