How Soon They Forget

I have been monitoring, with great interest, the latest big scandal to hit the Obama administration. Everyone has heard, by now, that the NSA is monitoring American phone traffic and emails and recording these call logs for posterity. A minor functionary with a contractor company who had, apparently, a very deep security clearance decided to tell the world of all the evil doing. 

It has long been known that the NSA is made up of very nosy people. That is their job. They snoop. Probably they do a lot of other things also. But mostly, they snoop. In 1929, Secretary of State, Henry L.  Stimson would not permit such behavior, saying, "Gentlemen do not read each others mail.". Well times have long since changed. To survive in this world we need to read the other guys mail. Maybe not so much other fellow Americans. I do not believe that anyone has rescinded the fourth amendment. The government has just taken a path around it.

But this is nothing new. Back sometime, I believe during the Clinton administration but possibly earlier, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand formed a massive world wide program called Echelon. A group of receptor satellites were put into  geo-synchronous orbit monitoring all electronic transmissions. The data accumulated was fed into super-computers and sorted out by a software called Silkworth or Sire. If you go on-line to check this information you may have to dig a little for some parts but it is there.

The really wonderful thing about Echelon was that they could tap into any phone call in real time. Any phone call. Now I have never heard anything about Echelon being closed down. Most government projects of this nature tend to grow. Let's just posit, that if this "new" capability is either a part of Echelon or added to Echelon, the government owns us. Businesses can't communicate without the government being in on it. If you are running against an incumbent politician that has some power, your conversations may now be on the party line, so to speak. And don't think abuses haven't taken place already. At all levels.

So, we have a spy agency monitoring electronic communications, unfettered. We have the IRS being used as a very powerful political tool to encumber or destroy those that our incumbent President refers to as enemies. Actually, the loyal opposition. We have the Justice Department stomping all over the first amendment. We have the EPA wrecking good businesses, with whom the administration disagrees, with extreme regulation. I'm not putting any spin on this. This is just what I see and hear in the news. This along with Janet Napolitano expanding the Federal Police Force makes me very nervous indeed. Four years ago, what is now the Federal Police, were just building guards. Now they are fully empowered police and they are getting fully automatic weapons and military armored troop carriers.

All this scandal after scandal is almost like a magician trying to distract on the left side while he is actually doing something on the right side. I will admit that maybe I have a little paranoia going on. But just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean you are wrong.   


One last note. Do not forget Benghazi. That is the scandal that this administration fears most. Every day they pray  it will get lost in the razzle-dazzle of all the other scandals. Don't let that happen.