It’s 1984 in 2013 – Welcome to Oceania!
“…Americans have learned that the National Security Agency has been spying on Americans without judicial approval. We learned about this not from the Administration, but from the New York Times and USA Today. Every time a revelation came out, President Bush refused to answer questions from Congress…
Americans fought a Revolution in part over the right to be free from unreasonable searches – to ensure that our government couldn’t come knocking in the middle of the night for no reason. We need to find a way forward to make sure that we can stop terrorists while protecting the privacy, and liberty, of innocent Americans.”
Senator Barack Obama, May 26, 2006, speaking about the Bush domestic spying program, at the confirmation hearing of General Michael Hayden as CIA Director.
There seems to be a really wide gulf between candidate Obama and President Obama.
It would be an understatement to say I’m extremely disappointed in President Obama. The type of change I was looking for when I voted for him was most definitely not having the US changed into a police state. I have to admit right now, I’m sorry I voted for him.
The disappointments pile up. And sadly, they started early on.
Right from the start of his presidency, rather than take the rational course to wind down and dismiss the “War on Terrorism,” Obama seemed to embrace the concept and use it to further his own ambitions.
WAR IS PEACE
Let’s be very candid: This “War” in reality is nothing more than marketing hype from Karl Rove and associates, designed to consolidate support for George W. Bush, who until 9/11, had a mediocre, lackluster and dismal term of office, and would certainly have gone down as a one-term wonder.
Then 9/11 happened. What a magnificent stroke of luck for George W. Bush.
Rove and his team seized the moment. Partisanship was already at an all-time high, so they artfully decided to capitalize on it. Everyone rallies around a “war-time” president, they knew, so what could be better than declaring the 9/11 attacks, acts of war, and then declaring a “War on Terrorism?”
It worked wonderfully.
The country brushed aside Bush’s mediocrity and closed ranks behind him. And in a glorious red, white and blue wave of partisan hysteria, they passed the “US Patriot Act.” This granted the government broad, sweeping powers to spy on, detain and charge people suspected of terrorism, while at the same time insuring there was no accountability. Voila!
The bill was rushed through congress by the Bush administration and passed only about a month after 9/11, with almost no opposition. The bill was so huge and complex, and the hysteria so great, it insured very few members of congress ever read the bill much less fully understood what they voted on.
Then Bush plunged the country into two unjust wars, killing thousands of Americans, not to mention innocent civilians.
I was terribly ashamed of what Bush had done to our great country, and the lofty ideals it was founded on.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
Then along came Obama. I really had high hopes for him.
A democrat and seeming liberal, he promised to end both wars and put the country back on the right track. He’d close Guantanamo. He’d correct all the problems of the Bush administration. I believed he’d make the United States an honorable nation again.
Maybe I was expecting too much, but I guess it was implicit – at least to me – that part of the bundle of exorcising the ghosts of George W. Bush was to close down and dismantle the phony War on Terror.
But that never happened, not even a little bit. The War on Terror proceeds unabated and has perhaps even grown.
And contrary to his own words, we now find out Obama has expanded the scope of the NSA spying way beyond what even the Bush administration had going. Way beyond.
I have a big problem with that. Warrantless searches are prohibited under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. And the suggestion that constitutional protections should be overlooked because of “war time” conditions is just flat unacceptable. There is no exception in the constitution for exigencies. None.
And despite angry protestations from the Obama administration, there’s no real evidence at all that any of this spying has ever stopped a single terror attack of any kind, any time, anywhere. It sure didn’t stop the Boston Marathon attack. The administration has offered no substantive proof at all to back up their claims of urgent necessity.
Do you feel more secure now, that under President Obama, the United States has been turned into a police state, where your every move is watched, recorded and analyzed by Big Brother? This is exactly what George Orwell visualized. This is a police state we live in now. Big Brother lives!
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
According to the disclosures made by Edward Snowden, the NSA has your emails, your video chats, your videos and photos (if you sent them via emails), your stored data in the cloud, your VoIP conversations, your passwords and login details, the IP headers of every website you visit, and they even own your Facebook account. They’re sucking down the details of pretty much everything we do, electronically. That, thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know.
We can also assume that they’re collecting cell phone data, and with the advent of smart phones, that means they also will have fairly precise location data on every person of every minute of every day – thanks to the GPS system most phones have these days. Unless of course, you’re one of those rare persons who actually turns their phone off.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg.
Right after the Boston Marathon bombing, an interesting disclosure was made on CNN. It concerned a phone call made by Tamerlan Tsarnaev to his wife, Katherine Russell, just after the bombing. The CNN story said about the phone conversation:
“What exactly the two said remains under investigation, the sources said.
Investigators may be able to recover the conversation, said Tom Clemente, a former counterterrorism agent for the FBI.
“We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, adding that “all of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”
“It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her,” he said.”
What did suspected bomber’s widow know? By Michael Pearson, Erin McPike and Aaron Cooper, CNN updated 5:39 AM EDT, Fri May 3, 2013 Emphasis added.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/us/boston-widow
That’s a startling admission. Yes, that’s what he said, “all of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”
Sucked right down into the humongous NSA vacuum cleaner. Not just the “harmless” metadata, but the actual words. This is a former FBI counterterrorism agent. Someone who’d know.
That this is happening was confirmed late this week in a secret Capitol Hill briefing by the NSA.
According to a story on CNET, “Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed ‘simply based on an analyst deciding that.'”
NSA admits listening to US phone calls without warrants, by Declan McCullagh, CNET News, June 15, 2013 – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/
Yes, Snowden’s disclosures are just the tip of the iceberg.
LOVE IS HATE
They’re collecting all this humongous amount of data on everyone in the US and much of the world, without one bit of probable cause or due process. Authorized, they say, by the secret judge in the secret FISA court, as they secretly gave themselves permission under their secret interpretation of the US Patriot Act.
Clearly we’ve been transported through the looking glass into the era of Orwell’s “Thought Police.” Every aspect of our lives is examined in the most minute details, sifted through and analyzed. All to stop “terror” before it happens.
And the government needs all this data – my emails, my phone records, my internet browsing habits and probably my preferences in toilet paper, to what? Catch terrorists? Really?
The text of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution is:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
This is unequivocal. There’s nothing there that says, “Except in case of terrorist attacks.”
If we start giving up parts of our freedom in the name of security, be warned this is a slippery, treacherous road to which there is no end; soon, we will have no freedom. With each part we give away, the rest is just that much more at peril. And each bit we lose brings us just that much closer to totalitarianism.
We teeter on the precipice right now.
Living in a democracy guaranteeing personal freedoms has inherent risks. But that’s what makes America great; that’s what makes America stand out from all the other nations in the world.
We need to roll back the clock. The US Patriot Act is un-American, and it should be repealed. And the phony war on terrorism must be put to bed. At once.
This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Not Oceania.