My heart says, "It's no big deal".

[kentuck]

But my head says, "Are you friggin' crazy!?"

I have always thought the "war on terror" was mostly a fraud, meant to cover up the incompetence of the previous Administration. I wanted to believe that President Obama would restore some sanity and normalcy back to our politics.

Many people say, "This is nothing new". But, are they right? The President explains it in a very non-threatening way and we are told there is nothing to fear. "No one is listening to your phone calls", he says.

But my head asks, "Why?" Why do we need so much secrecy? And why are we required to trust those that hold the secrets? We are told that if they come upon a hot clue, they have to go back to the courts to get permission to listen and investigate the suspicious person. Then common sense asks, "Why do they need the information on everybody"?? What purpose does it serve?

I dislike the very idea of secrecy in our supposedly open democracy. Who do you trust on the intelligence committee to maintain the secrets? Who do you trust in the White House to guard the secrets? History has proven that eventually these secrets will be abused. It is human nature to want to find out information on your political enemies, etc.

My heart wanted this President to tear down the wall of secrecy created by George W Bush and the last regime. I prefer to live in a free society.

[GeorgeGist]

1. "Everybody says" ...

is a cop-out.

[kentuck]

2. You're right.

corrected.

[Buns_of_Fire]

3. I've always found it odd that congresscritters can get "briefings" about these things.

But the commoners aren't mature or trustworthy enough to be told beans.

So folks like Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert are considered better security risks than you or I are. Let THAT one sink in for a while...

[WinkyDink]

4. When others warned/predicted/spoke of this eventuality (and also of the Bilderbergers), they were

ridiculed, scorned, anathematized.

Who's the fool now?

[HereSince1628]

5. The digital age makes many things easier...including surveillance

Fear, including fear of looking flat-footed, or worse on security following the inevitable attack, motivates nations as well as people to at least do the easy things.

I am sure that the US looks at a lot of communications content, but because of the still huge costs involved, I doubt any agency looks at the content of everything.

The nature of terrorism is that punitive action against terrorists usually occurs after they reveal themselves. Having a database that can be used to identify clusters of inter-communicating persons makes retaliation (and disruption of further activity) possible. So, being able to run down the behind the scenes members of a terror cell seems like a good thing relative to the war on terror for the police and prosecutors.

But the capacity to do that is without any doubt the capacity to identify whoever digitally associates/traffics with whomever. You just need the identification of a starting node from which to work. It could be a known or suspected member of OWS. It could be a known leader of the Michigan Militia. It could be men who buy Viagra from a foreign internet pharmacy without a prescription. "IT" all depends on which agency is making a choice of where it wants to act on information based on association.

The routing data on every packet of digital information thenmakes construction of the web of association pretty easy.

If history teaches us anything, it is that leaders of governments (indeed ALL institutions) do what's seen as particularly easy.

We must learn to live in a nation in which the security agencies desire us to exercise our freedom of association so that they can be aware of with whom we associate.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[longship]

7. "Who will guard the guardians?"

Not everybody here took Latin, my friend.

(I was going to make a joke about posting Spanish, by decided against it. But, see, I still sorta got it in.)