Trust Us

“America holds auctions, not elections.” William O’Connor

So, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirmed what most semi-awake people already knew – the NSA is sweeping up gobs of information about American citizens.

The government has egg all over its face because of past assurances that the NSA wasn’t spying on Americans.

The din over Snowden is loud and confused; some call him a traitor and demand his head on a platter; others say he is a hero who acted on his conscience to expose a threat to democracy itself; and of course the smear campaign against him is well underway with some talking heads and pundits branding him as a narcissist and self-aggrandizer.

It’s difficult for an ordinary citizen to sort this one out. The Obama administration claims nothing is amiss with the NSA’s spying program, that in addition to being perfectly legal (as opposed to being morally right), it has been invaluable in foiling various terrorist plots. As with most claims by Obama’s spin masters, little evidence is offered to back up the assertion. We’re urged to believe that our government – and the many unaccountable corporations who are part and parcel of the global security state – would never misuse their access to the information of ordinary citizens.

In other words, the public should trust the NSA in the same way we should trust Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and Bank of America and BP and Exxon Mobil and Chevron, because none of these powerful behemoths has ever plunged a knife in our back.

In the aftermath of 9/11, when collective insanity reigned and moderate voices were drowned out by hysteria, and bloodthirsty Muslim extremists were hiding in every shadow, Congress misplaced its spine and cowered before Dick Cheney and relinquished too much power to the executive branch. Under the guise of security, most Americans were more than willing to trade basic civil liberties; and now we can’t stuff the genie back in the bottle. The surveillance state is too large, vast, interconnected, and profitable to be scaled back.

Too much power, of any sort, in too few hands is a tried and true recipe for tyranny.