Happy Independence Day I Guess

Ed Snowden is an Hero.

Happy Independence Day to our country, to all the folks who have served and will serve in the cause of freedom, to everyone who fights injustice wherever it may be found.

There will be fireworks in some places I am sure.  Fireworks, barbecues, and happy times today.  But today, there is something that hangs over me, obscuring the brightness of the light shows in the skies and the singing of patriotic songs.

That something is knowing that the N.S.A. has been spying on everyone world-wide-- enemy countries and friend countries and terrorists and perceived terrorists and ordinary people and just about everyone.  I am small potatoes.  I am fairly certain that none of the special rigs or equipment, drones or recording devices, honeypots or traps have been set just for me.

At this point in time, to me my guess is that the N.S.A. is throwing a wide net with the hopes of ensnaring anyone who is guilty.  There is so much data that a huge facility is being built in Utah to house it all.  

I don't have anything to hide.  Still, there is something sinister about a governmental agency that seems to be all-powerful without any meaningful oversight.  The employees of the N.S.A., just like the folks who work as T.S.A. agents in the airports, run the risk of becoming obnoxious bullies.  It happens.  

This ought to be a time of high anxiety for every American as well as for the other citizens of the world.  I've watched as Big Hollywood has worked hard to legislate some highly unfair copyright monopoly laws onto the international community.  I view Big Data as having similar aims:  Let's insist on transparency for anyone who does anything on the internet but exhibit no transparency ourselves.  

We are caught marching to the beat of a series of drums which we did not create and which we are not ourselves pounding on.  A few of us will be goaded into places where we never intended to go by the virtue of being outspoken and not polite.  Some of us will be informed that we must inform on our friends and social media contacts.  If one hunts long enough for the tragic flaw, one will find it.  Objectionable actions can come in many forms.  Will a few of us wind up in a Gitmo style residence, away from the masses and without due process merely because we have opinions and we dare to express them?

We Americans are focused on what is or is not happening with Ed Snowden.  The rest of the world is focused on how much they hate our government.  This cannot end well.

Or, maybe nothing much will happen at all.  Everything will be pretty much business as usual-- even though there is a new emphasis on giving up our wallet names and cell phone numbers in order to establish an e-mail account or join up with some bloggers or artists out here in Interwebz Land.  Maybe one of those countries that is copping a huge resentment won't drop some bombs on our country, triggering a war.  Maybe even the folks who use encryption will stop doing so because that is suspicious behavior.  Maybe it will soon be illegal to use a V.P.N. or proxy or chain proxies together.  We can get used to anything I guess.

Or can we?

radical sapphoq