Thursday, June 13, 2013

Droning on About the NSA


Here’s why one fellow in my town is against the NSA’s massive surveillance efforts: it's an act against God.

“Listen, God is the only one with the right to know what you’re thinking and saying. God, not the government. That giant NSA surveillance facility they’re building in Utah is a huge Temple of Satan. America is God’s nation, but as we give up our guns and surrender to the gays and the government we are giving ourselves over to Satan.”

I’m not sure about the guns and gays thing, but amen to the rest. You don’t have to be paranoid to worry that the PRISM program is bad for democracy. Sure, Google and Facebook collect more data on me than the NSA, but they want to use that to make money. I can live with that. Go ahead, Google, sell my info to Jockey and let them try and sell me more underwear. I can take it.

But the government doesn’t want my data for money, they want it for power. At some point I will have enough underwear. At no point does the government have enough power.

I agree with Sir Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Again, that last part may be too much, but the temptation to use the info it has will corrupt the NSA and any president who has access to it. Good men and women will go bad if they can convince themselves that going bad is really going good. And they always convince themselves of this.

If Google wants to send an ad to my phone, fine. But the government is going to send a drone to my doorstep—not so fine.

I don’t believe in Satan, but I do believe in the satanic. No, not that ship that sank with Leonardo DiCaprio on it. I’m talking about the capacity of good people to make bad decisions in the name of good ends. This may have nothing to do with Satan, but it will plunge us all into hell. 

2 comments:

Erick Reynolds said...

The federal government had been very good at “collecting information” for decades via CIA, NSA, IRS, FBI, State Dept., etc. We are only getting to hear about pieces of it. But as we all know, the federal government is completely incompetent and doesn’t know what to do with this information. It took over ten years of top priority effort to find Bin Laden, the same for the Uni-bomber, and they still haven’t found the real JFK assassin. That is why they contract out complex things like private security guards for the nuclear weapons program. It is known in law enforcement that most criminals are caught because they are stupid. So, as long as you don’t admit in Facebook that you don’t always come to a full stop at stop signs, you probably won’t get caught. Oh.. and don’t write things that draw attention to you like … ““Hi. You have reached Rami Abu Aaron’s cell phone. I’m at a tea party with my Islamic friend Imam Jihadi scheduled for 9:11. We’re sharing a plate of hamas and pita, and planning to start a C-4 non-profit. Sorry I missed you, but remember whatever happens today, you’re da-bomb.”

Lindsey Clayton said...

i'm scared to comment after that... lol.