Pharra

Monday, May 22, 2006

NSA trumps Civil Rights

I don't know what to say about this that hasn't been discussed already by folks who are concerned as myself.

The NSA, after 9/11, got AT&T to allow them to install listening devices on all of their equipment, including equipment used by other phone providers, so that the NSA could not only tell who called who from where and for how long, but the actual conversation, for anyone connected to AT&T's landlines. That means if you've used a landline phone since 9/11, you have been recorded. Hard to believe. Harder still if your response is "So? I didn't say anything they'd care about."

Not only that, but a secret trial has been going on about this for several years, that has only recently come to light. Our judicial system has no check other than public scrutiny, so this makes the issue more absurd. Now we can have trials, judgment and sentencing all without the public knowing it ever happened?

Once power is granted, governments and people are loath to give it up.

I'm not sure where my country is headed. We used to stand for Freedom, Democracy, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We used to be a nation of immigrants.

Now, my Latin wife and my four mixes (children) look like their hispanic culture will become a stigma to much of the US, and then - this.

"The Siege" and "V for Vendetta" both try to give us warnings and tell us a story. I never believed "The Siege" at the time, but hearing this - all we need now is to start rounding up US arabs. Can we say that isn't 5, 8 years away?

Do we know, now?

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