{"id":36758,"date":"2013-06-14T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=36758"},"modified":"2013-06-14T06:41:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T11:41:17","slug":"stuck-in-the-security-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=36758","title":{"rendered":"Stuck In The Security Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over this past week since the NSA scandal broke, the national Salem hosts – Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt – have been defending\u00a0<\/em>the NSA’s\u00a0stated\u00a0<\/em>data-mining practice. \u00a0On its surface, the case makes sense; they’re looking for patterns, contacts, things that point to terrorist contact in America.<\/p>\n

And as far as that goes, it makes sense.<\/p>\n

But I’m amazed that these learned guys have already forgotten the IRS scandal, and for that matter “Joe the Plumber”; once the government has information, it’s only as safe as the most partisan, lowest-integrity people who have access to it will allow it to be.<\/p>\n

Joe Doakes from Como Park had some of the same thoughts. \u00a0He emails:<\/p>\n

Liberals say, re: the NSA scandal: \u201cI really don\u2019t care if the government looks at my stuff if they are indeed looking for terrorists.\u201d \u00a0[As we’ve seen, so do some conservatives – Ed.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDear Mr. Jones. While looking for terrorists, we noticed you have done X. We\u2019re forwarding this information to the local newspapers, your wife, your pastor and the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Just letting you know. Sincerely\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Mr. Jones\u2019 Employer. While looking for terrorists, we noticed Mr. Jones has done X. The fact that you continue to employ him is suspicious, probably evidence you\u2019re in cahoots with him. Please take appropriate action to clear your good name. Sincerely,\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Senator Z. While looking for terrorists, we noticed Mr. Jones has done X. We also noticed he gave money to your opponent, meaning your opponent condones people who do X. We thought you\u2019d like to know. Sincerely,\u201d<\/p>\n

X can be anything unpopular that can be discovered by listening to your phone calls, tracking the GPS in your phone or car, examining your debit card charges, reviewing your e-mail or checking your web-surfing habits.<\/p>\n

You bought a brick of .22\u2019s (an arsenal), you clicked on a link in an email and found yourself on a porn site (sex maniac), you bought incandescent light bulbs instead of compact florescent (environmental terrorist), you have Not paid the hazardous waste disposal fee to throw away compact florescent light bulbs meaning you\u2019ve been slipping them into the ordinary garbage (environmental terrorist), you attended a meeting of the Boy Scouts or the Catholic Church (homophobe), the NRA (gun nut) or the GOP (all of the above).<\/p>\n

If we could depend on the government to keep secret our private information and apply the law even-handedly, maybe it would be okay that they looked at everything. But recent scandals show us we can\u2019t depend on that. Right now, we all hope the sheer volume of garbage collected will insulate us from the wrath being applied to any one of us in particular. Protection in numbers. Since I\u2019m only one of a large flock of sheep, the odds are the wolf will go after another sheep instead of me.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, with the wolf having the power to sort through all sheep for tenderloin quality, the number of sheep provides me no protection. The rational response is tell the government nothing, prohibit them from collecting anything, and punish those who abused our trust.<\/p>\n

Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Patterns of behavior aren’t without meaning. \u00a0And the Fed’s patterns these days should give any thinking person who cares for freedom plenty of pause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over this past week since the NSA scandal broke, the national Salem hosts – Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt – have been defending\u00a0the NSA’s\u00a0stated\u00a0data-mining practice. \u00a0On its surface, the case makes sense; they’re looking for patterns, contacts, things that point to terrorist contact in America. And as far as that goes, it makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,51,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-liberal-tyranny","category-your-papers-please"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36759,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36758\/revisions\/36759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}