Steve Elliott
We may be the last generation that will have ever known privacy. Every day, we are one step closer to the Total Surveillance Society. Every day, we lose a little more of that part of being human that claims the right to be left alone, that knows freedom from the prying eyes of the corporate state, that has the boldness to claim some inner sanctum where the all-seeing eyes of technology cannot penetrate.
The dystopian dreams of mid-20th Century writers like George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Philip K. Dick and Barry Malzberg are coming true all around us, but it seems the majority of citizens are so dazed by mass media distractions, by government-instilled fear, and by the drudgery of their daily existence that they can’t be bothered to wake up and take stock of what is being taken from them.
Our telephones don’t just transmit our voices from point A to point B anymore. The government is there in the middle between us and those with whom we speak, listening, analyzing, weighing the possibility that we are Enemy Combatants who should be whisked away in the dead of night and stored in a cage from which we’ll be periodically extracted for “harsh interrogation.”
The telecom companies which have been entrusted with the sanctity of our private conversations have not only rolled over — all of them but Qwest and CREDO Mobile, anyway. They have acquiesced to the demands of government that they allow federal goons to hover over our every word. They have been paid handsomely for their complicity, but at the cost of their humanity and our freedom. And now they have been told by a spineless and morally bankrupt Congress that they won’t ever be held accountable; that it’s OK to break the law when the President tells you to do it. If you are rich and powerful enough to buy Congressmen, then the law apparently wasn’t meant to apply to you, anyway.
The telecom companies (again, with the notable exceptions of Qwest and CREDO) have no problem at all handing the info over to the government — and that’s without a court order. And as we sadly found out July 9, a spineless Senate (with the exception of 28 true patriots) is more than willing to give them carte blanche to do so, by including telecom immunity in the FISA bill. More
Also See: Top Secret Government Spying Program: YOU
Tags: Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, telecom companies, Total Surveillance