Friday, May 12, 2006

Hello Big Brother


In the latest erosion of constitutional rights and civil liberties, it was reported by USA Today that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

Qwest (my former employer) declined to cooperate with the NSA because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants. That's partially true, but anyone who works there knows that it probably had to do with the fact that they are inept and worried about bad publicity. That and the fact that their too busy dealing with shareholder lawsuits and the like.

What's even more disturbing is that nearly two-thirds of Americans are totally fine with being spied upon by their government.

WHAT THE FUCK?

My guess is that, oh, 0.004% of them realize that such surveillance is actually illegal according to Constitutional scholars. But putting aside that small fact, does anyone else think that this has go to be the biggest waste of money and resources? How about we throw some of the multi-billion dollars at our schools?

We have absolutely, totally 100% lost our minds in this country. I swear, each month I tell myself "don't worry -- only 2 more years and this fuckwit is gone. It can't get any worse." And then it does.

To any Republican reading this blog (unlikely as it is), can you honestly tell me that Clinton was this bad? Seriously?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

uh oh. When the FBI/CIA/Homeland Security shows up at my door, all those calls to unlisted cell phones in foreign locations were totally drunk dials...

Smartypants said...

Nice baby camo.

Yes. I say the same thing. A couple more years and it'll all be over. Surely it can get no worse.

But then.....

David James said...

I honestly believe we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg with Bush & Co. Just wait until he's out of office and then I'm sure the really sordid details will come out. Of course, by then we'll all be wearing monitoring bracelets and book burning will be vogue again, but still ...