This past week has revealed shocking new details about the U.S. government and the Obama Administration’s expansion of secret surveillance on its citizens, which began under President George W. Bush after the September 11 terrorist attacks. We learn that Verizon (and possibly others) was forced by a secret government order to collect and hand over to the U.S. government all records of all of its calls both in the United States and abroad, from this past April 25th until July 19th, effectively sweeping millions of American citizens’ private communications data into the National Security Agency’s (NSA) vast data base. And thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, we have also learned shocking new revelations about a top-secret government domestic spying computer program known as Prism, which collects all of our internet information, such as our search history, our emails, our shared files, etc. The government is forcing internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and others, into not only complying but into keeping silent about it as well. Sound Orwellian enough for you yet?
Sadly, there once was a seemingly honest man known as Senator Barack Obama, who in 2005 was part of a small number of senators objecting to portions of the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act – a historical piece of legislation crafted after the 911 attacks to allegedly give the government more tools to fight terrorism. What the Patriot Act actually did was anything but patriotic, because it gave the government broad new powers over its citizens, chipping away at our civil liberties and constitutional protections; in other words, what the right-wingers claim to cherish so dearly: freedom. Then Senator Obama was concerned about the possibility that certain provisions in the Patriot Act, specifically section 215, could lead to “government fishing expeditions targeting innocent Americans.” Unfortunately, he was right.
Now, section 215 of the Patriot Act is being used by the Obama Administration to legally justify their enormously expanded domestic spying program. The former Senator and Candidate Obama once led the charge against the Bush Administration’s Big Brother tactics in its war on terror, but now President Obama has done a 360 degree reversal and not only embraced it, but expanded it.
At best, Mr. Obama’s change of heart as President is the height of hypocrisy. At worst, perhaps the then would be president was merely offering lip service to the liberals, the civil libertarians, and the moderates in this country who feared the U.S.’s new assault on our constitutional rights in the name of fighting terror, to vote for him, “change you can believe in.” Whether or not candidate Obama was being sincere in his original opposition to domestic spying and other chilling aspects of Bush’s war on terror is hard to determine. What is easy to determine now is that he has taken Mr. Bush’s approach and embraced it, amplified it, and is running strong with it.
The Obama Administration has also prosecuted more government whistle blowers than all the other Administrations before him combined, by using the extreme measure of charging them with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which was meant to punish people handing over government secrets to foreign enemies. When the Obama Administration first took over the White House, it spoke of its intention to strengthen laws to protect whistle blowers. More lip service or outright lies? It seems all but certain now that Edward Snowden, who has come forward with the information about the use of Prism, will be hunted down by the U.S. government for severe punishment.
What is further maddening about Obama’s heavy-handed pursuit of whistle-blowers and his Administration’s continuing assault on the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights that protects us from “unreasonable search and seizure” is the outrage and hostility directed by many of our politicians and news pundits towards Edward Snowdwen and other whistle-blowers. There is a race to demonize him and paint him as an enemy of the state instead of what he actually is, which is a brave man who forever may have ruined his own individual life to get the truth out to the rest of us about what our government is doing to us behind closed doors, which is spying and taking notes on all of our communications in secrecy.
President Obama now claims to be happy to have a debate about this. Really? If he were happy to have a discussion and debate about it, we’d have heard from him or other government officials starting the conversation about the vast high-tech spying that is going on against its own citizens. Instead, we find out through the leaks of federal employees who face possible life in prison for bringing to light all of the government abuses in the first place. We can no longer trust anything he or anyone in his Administration has to say about this, as they have been lying and deceiving us all along, and viciously pursuing and attempting to imprison anyone within the government who provides the truth to the press.
Columnist and conservative and phony intellectual David Brooks of the New York Times wrote in an editorial yesterday that it wasn’t Big Brother that was the problem, but rather “the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric” that was the real danger, and went on further to say that Edward Snowden was making this worse. The entire editorial was a shining example of how Mr. Brooks and others like him spin words of bullshit into propaganda that is then interpreted as truth by many. In his editorial, he attacks the character and personality of Mr. Snowden in order to distract us from what was actually revealed. He then goes on to assure us that Edward Snowden acted “unilaterally” and un-ethically when leaking this information to the public. The editorial is a perfect example of how propaganda manages to be fed to us even through such seemingly liberal leaning and respected newspapers such as the New York Times.
Of course David Brooks is just towing the Establishment line in attacking the messengers of the truth instead of the truth itself. Aside from President Obama’s new-found support of spying on and lying to the American public, he is supported in unusual bipartisan manner in both chambers of Congress, though there are a few notable dissenters, one of which is a man I don’t agree with on many things, but on this matter is absolutely right, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. I saw some of the hacks on the FOX Propaganda Channel last night decrying the shocking news about our being spied upon by the government, but I don’t seem to recall any of this outrage from these jack asses when their chosen one, President George. W. Bush was first starting the whole program up.
What I have not heard enough from the average person yet is any sense of outrage. I heard many more grumblings in the public from what I have maintained was an over hyped non-scandal, the IRS’s scrutiny of conservative political groups. There was much saber rattling and falsehoods being spread during the gun control debate recently, which resulted in zero new federal regulations of guns. But where is the outrage on this assault on our First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the freedom of speech and the press, and the Fourth Amendment, on our protection against illegal search and seizure by the government? Surely Americans still value these rights as much as they do criminals’ rights to buy and sell firearms without a background check. Do Americans not care all that much that all of our phone call records and details of our internet connection are being collected by the government without our knowledge? Have we been made so afraid by propaganda about the threat of terrorism that we are willfully giving up our rights with barely a murmur of protest?
I for one salute the courage of Edward Snowden and other whistle blowers before him and those that come after him, for making available to the American public what our government is doing behind closed doors. I salute The Guardian newspaper from the U.K. for breaking the story, and encourage you to become as informed as you can about what Big Brother is doing with your private information by checking out the Guardian’s very informative coverage of the NSA leaks at :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-nsa-files
And the next time you are on your cell phone or your computer, just remember, Uncle Sam is watching you, and recording your every move. Here is a music video for you to enjoy as you ponder the Orwellian state of things in this country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY