Teh awesome!!!
Glenn Greenwald’s been all over this one for a while, this was always going to happen. In a strange way, I can see the “necessity” of the telecoms cooperating with the administration in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when everyone remained jumpy, and rightfully so. But after a short while, all of this should have gone to Congress for authorization, and it didn’t. The telecoms can say they were just doing what their government asked of them/told them, though in fact they reaped significant financial benefits from playing along.
But as to “we were just following orders,” Dan Froomkin provides the definitive smackdown:
But isn’t that the very definition of a police state: that companies should do whatever the government asks, even if they know it’s illegal?
Yes, but it’s all so different when it’s done in America. Somehow.
Greenwald highlights the complicity of the Democratic Senators in all this. But of course. We move toward this era of government as Big Brother knowingly; we embrace it. The leadership - Republican or Democratic - embraces it because it’s so much easier to catch a terrorist that way; so much easier to ensure that we the people, all of us potential terrorist sympathizers, remain in line. The people themselves embrace it, blind with fear, saying that since they have nothing to hide, who cares if the government intercepts and reads e-mails sent overseas? They don’t send any e-mails overseas. And indeed, even if - or when - the program is expanded to the extent that all communications within the U.S. are monitored and catalogued - why, they’ve got nothing to hide.
It strikes me that had Bill Clinton been in power these past eight years, the people who are now so busy proclaiming that they’ve got nothing to hide would be howling about the possibility of government misuse of this awesome power. It’s all just fine when Republicans have hold of the reins, of course; and now we see that even when Democrats have hold of the reins, their constituency also is not averse to the idea of a police state. Even Chris Dodd concedes: The national security issue won the day.
The national security issue, from here on out, always wins the day. And if you think that makes you freer - indeed, if you think it ultimately makes you safer - then you’ve got a heck of a lot more trust in Washington and the politicians and bureaucrats ensconced therein than I do.
