Message in a Bottle
This past week Congress passed a bill which gave the White House unfettered access to all electronic communications (domestic and international) in the name of national security.
This is deeply disturbing on two counts.
The first is that the legislative branch again failed to exercise their role as a check on the executive branch. It was understandable during the first six years of this administration because of the Republican majority in both the Senate and the House. So the American people got the sort of government that they voted for. Now that the Democrats have the majority in both houses, I expected more.
Rather than confront the White House on the issue and run the risk of being labeled as soft on security, the Democrats ran and hid. They promise to come back in six months and fight again.
The second is that the Democrats tacitly agreed with the Republicans that this issue was too complicated for the average American voter to grasp. So instead they allowed a government agency to read anyone’s e-mail without a warrant or any court oversight.
What’s really disappointing about the whole thing is that this won’t make our country any safer. We know, for example, that bin Laden only communicates using human messengers. If you were a terrorist and knew that world governments had the ability to snoop e-mail what would you do? That’s right. You’d either encrypt or code your messages or more likely use some other method to communicate. DUH!
The reality is that the government isn’t stupid either, so why go through the exercise? If this isn’t about catching terrorists, what IS this about?
Two thoughts come to mind.
It is about appearing to do something even if that something is ineffective. That’s the least sinister motive.
It is more likely about spying on people who might become terrorists someday, but aren’t in the process of planning anything today. You know the general group of suspects – Muslims, survivalists, white supremacists, criminals, sexual deviants, immigrants, radicals, cult members, political activists, and yes – bloggers.
So here’s a little something for the government’s search bots.
انني دون “تي لكم الثقة وسأبذل كل ما استطيع ان (قانونيا) لتشجيع الناس على التصويت خروجك من منصبه.
Here’s a link if you’d like to translate it.
http://translate.google.com/translate_t
I’ll let you know how this turns out.