The other shoe

So now we know that the target was not only terrorism.  It may have started that way in the minds of some., but that NSA data is finding it's way into other hands.

The DEA and the IRS are getting this stuff.  Does anyone care to wager that this is not the last recipient that we will find out about.

To paint a broad brush that everyone is a potential terrorist, and therefore all of their electronic communications are fair game, but only for 'national security' of course, was already a stretch.  But of course it was never going to stop there.

And of course it will not stop with the DEA and the IRS either.  We are all suspects now, and for the moment it is about whether or not we may be committing a crime.  The more people get there hand on this information, it will be used for more and different purposes.

Just the way San Diego Mayor Bob Filner used information he gained as a member of congress to target women who had been victims of sexual harassment and rape, to help select his own targets, so you will find others with access to the NSA data using it for their own purposes.

Got any secrets?  Not anymore!
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Yes, he really is that evil

I just got through watching the Showtime documentary The world according to Dick Cheney.  It reaffirmed every bad thing that I ever thought about him. He really was a Svengali, leading the hapless Bush around by the nose for his entire first term.  But what is worse is, he remains happy in the damage he inflicted upon the United States.

He fundamentally changed this country from one where the rule of law mattered, to one where only expediency matters.  It know longer matters whether we are the good guys or the bad guys, as long as we win, within his warped definition of winning.  That Iran has become the major power in the region as a result of our crippling the only nation strong enough to counter them?  When asked about regrets, he said he would do it all over again.  While that was never addressed in the interviews, I am sure his solution would be still another war.

That he squandered all the sympathy and good will we had acquired after the September 11th attacks, creating a whole new generation of enemies?  Apparently no regrets there either.  He turned the United States from the beacon of hope we have tried to represent to the world to the school bully shaking down the other kids for their lunch money.  The concept that his actions created more danger in the world, not less, is beyond his understanding.

He set a standard, a tone, that still exists.  Laws are for the little people to follow, the lash that keeps them behind the plow, while the powerful may ignore them with impunity.  That is true in this country which has become a Security State, and it is true in how this country behaves in relation to it's international obligations.

He argued with Bush for Scooter Libby to be pardoned, but he would never come clean, that Libby was only trying to protect him.   His loyalty only goes so far.  A Chicken Hawk to the end.

While the program presented some opposing thoughts to a number of Cheney's views, there were very few tough questions asked, and few challenges to his assertions.  Yet despite the kid gloves with which the former vice president was handled, he still came off as an soulless ideologue who was uninterested in any fact which might conflict with what he had made up his mind he wanted to do.

It appears to me that in many ways he accomplished his main goal, which was to mold the United States into his own image.  He removed morality and justice from the equation, making us mirror images of the evil we found ourselves confronted with back on September 11th.  Will we ever recover?

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Another take on "freedom isn't free"

You hear that a lot, "Freedom isn't free".  That is the excuse you hear all the time for letting the government listen in on your phone calls, torture suspects, and arrest and threaten people without a warrant, and lie to you every day.

But that is not what I think about when I hear that.  When I hear that phrase, a completely different thought comes into my mind.

Freedom is not for the timid.  By that I do not mean that a timid individual has no place in a free society, but that society as a whole cannot be timid.  Freedom is dangerous.  In a free society, bad people will do bad things, and it is the responsibility of society to punish them for those bad things.  But until they have actually done something bad, they are just free people in a free society.

But what about....there are a whole lot of those.  And the answer is the same.  You want to be free, you have to give that freedom to everyone else.  And that means big brother is not constantly stepping in to prevent someone from hurting you.

Does that mean they government cannot tap the phones of organized crime or suspected terrorists?  Of course not.  But it does mean they have to stand up in front of a judge and lay out a real reason why they should be allowed to.

Would we miss some threats, if the government could not be constantly mining all of your cell phone calls and emails for key words and patterns?  Probably yes, although not as many as the government would like you to believe.  But you know what?  That is the price of freedom.  That is what freedom not being free really means.

There really are only two choices.  A free society, or a police state.  Yeah, you can put a pretty face on a police state, make most people feel like they are mostly free, but it is all a facade.  You are free or you are not.  And it takes courage to be free.  The politicians who write things like the Patriot Act are counting on you been too much of a coward to object.