Right-There's nothing new about PRISM.
We can debate forever the degree to which the NSA revelations are “old news.” In fact, I would attribute the origins of the Surveillance State back at least to the late 19th Century, when industrialists enlisted the Pinkerton Agency to fight the “Communist” American union movement.
Then, before and during World War II there was the Dies Committee, which morphed into HUAC after the war. And of course there were McCarthy’s infamous investigations in the Senate, and J. Edgar Hoover’s wildly out-of-control FBI with its moles, wiretaps, and worse. We know about the government’s illegal penetration of both the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 60’s.
And of course the Drug War that has been with us since the 70’s, and so on. And now it’s the PRISM scandal.
The point of all this spying, disruption and other nefarious government activity was never to protect us from hostile foreign interests. It was always intended to serve the purpose of quelling internal dissent, of preventing the masses from seizing power from their rich masters. As James Madison commented during the secret meetings that gave rise to the Consittution in 1787,
Thus, it’s not like any of this stuff should be new to us. The Overlords have always employed whatever means they felt necessary to keep their grip upon the common people. Sometimes the steel fist has been bared, sometimes it has been cloaked in velvet, but it has always been there, ready to be summoned at need.
The new revelations about the lengths to which the government (and contracted private entities) has gone to maintain control over the population in this new digital age should come as no great surprise.
If we have a right to be surprised about anything, it is that this young Senator who campaigned on a platform of openness and transparency, who stood against violations of our civil rights in the past, has so readily bought into the supposed necessity of maintaining an ever more intrusive and powerful system of domestic surveillance and, having once lauded whistleblowers who exposed corruption and excesses, has now turned upon them, making himself an enemy of the unfettered truth.
Certainly, given the dynamics of international politics, any nation needs to conceal certain things, and may need to take certain steps to gather intelligence under the cloak of secrecy. But the default position should always be for openness, and the need for concealment should be clearly shown to outweigh other considerations before it is implemented.
And above all, this government has no right whatsoever to create and implement a massive policy of universal surveillance of its citizens such as has come to light in recent times. Such a system has an inevitable chilling effect upon democracy—first, by silencing speech and blocking free association, and second, by denying the public the information necessary to make informed electoral decisions.
And, truth be told, I am not surprised at these revelations. I am only profoundly disappointed.
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