Can you hear me now?

I've known about this since 2006 and if you think that being a Ferrerman affords me some sort of top security clearance, you are wrong. I'm sometimes not even allowed on this blog! damn passwords... I read about it in the newspaper back then. The NSA listening to our phone calls was in all the papers! No wonder it didn't get much coverage.

And the thing I remember about reading about the NAS listening to our phone calls back in aught six was that, no one seemed to care. It just wasn't that big of a deal.

Well, we had a white president then, one that republicans approved of and congress and the people pretty much went along with everything The Dumbass did. Nowadays you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a House of Representatives voting relentlessly to repeal Obamacare. Life was so simple then!

One of the things that The Dumbass did was get Congress and America to go along with The Patriot Act, an act which (if you were paying attention) gave the gubmint broad powers in the name of fighting terrorism to do things like listen to domestic phone calls.

So, these revelations by Edward Snowden are not that earth shattering. The big question should be why is this news, now? Is this like voting on healthcare over and over again in case there is a different reaction by the Senate, because, you know- there could be if only you vote often enough?

Here's a clip of actor Shia Lebeouf on Jay Leno in '08:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3ux1hpLvqMw

Never mind the phone calls and the matter a fact, boastful way the FBI consultant presented Lebeouf  with a recording of the actor's phone call from two years prior- he freely admitted to him that they could use the ADT speaker system to listen to you talking in your own home! They can disable your vehicle via your Onstar system. Did you get the feeling that this was the tip of the iceberg? I don't know what the movie was and I guess he could be talking some shit to give credence to his (then) current film but...I think we know that the powers that be are surely capable of such things and not just to mess with the head of a young actor promoting a film.

What did we think The Patriot Act would do? More important, what did we think it wouldn't  do?

I guess my take is that it legitimized stuff they were already doing or were going to do anyway. It made us complicit because we didn't fight it them. That was the key- complicity. The hook was terrorism. We wanted them to do whatever it took to get Bin Laden and anyone else connected with 9/11.

I've long wondered which came first- The Patriot Act or 9/11?  Did they have to go to all that trouble?

If they want to catch spies and terrorists, why not do whatever is necessary to catch spies and terrorists and not tell us about it, kinda like they used to? Do we have to be in on it? Do they have to sift through our private conversations and the websites we visit on the 'net to do this? Or worse, do they have to pretend they are hunting terrorists  just to listen to our phone calls and track our porn viewing? I'm really not so sure this NSA/Patriot Act nonsense isn't just market research on steroids. Welcome to the Corporate States of America?