By Dave Lindorff
Does all this computing spying power make you feel safer? (
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Many years ago, back in 1975 when Gerald Ford was the nation's default president, I spent a summer living in the home of two friends, both important anti-war academics, who had two young children. One of their kids, Jacob, who was about seven at the time and smart as a whip, had been given the gift of a can of compressed air which carried a label claiming it contained a miracle product called "Bullshit Repellent." Whenever someone in the house -- family member, me, or some other guest -- would say something ridiculous, stupid or false, someone would inevitably yell out, "Jacob, get the Bullshit Repellent!" Jacob would come running in enthusiastically with the can and would spray it proudly at whoever was uttering the BS.
I sure wish I had Jacob and his spray can right now. I simply cannot believe the BS being spouted by President Obama, National Security Agency Director James Clapper, or the members of Congress who should be demanding their heads for the unprecedented surveillance and spying on all Americans that has just been exposed.
Let's start at the top. Our president (who once boasted of having taught Constitutional law), decried way back in 2007 when he was contemplating a run for the White House, what he correctly labeled the Bush-Cheney administration's "false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide." Fast forward to the president today, after his all-encompassing monitoring of all the phone and internet communications of all Americans, and here's what he's saying now (speaking last Friday in San Jose after the humongous pervasiveness and intrusiveness of the spying was exposed in the U.K Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post:
"I think it's important for everybody to understand ... that there are some trade-off's involved. You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society."
Jacob, quick! The bullshit repellent!
Where to start. A security-for-liberty trade-off? Where's the security? We just had a bombing in Boston that would have been spotted in a minute if the FBI were monitoring the Tsarnaev brothers" websites (assuming they are the guilty parties). But the FBI said it "stopped" monitoring Tamerlan Tsarnaev after interviewing him several times, and "closed" his case, despite his having travelled to Dagestan, and despite warnings from Russian intelligence. This is the kind of "100 percent security" we get in return for handing over 100% of our privacy on the phone and online? What BS!...
For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent three-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to:www.thiscantbehappening.net/
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