By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Oh, to be young again, sizzling with juice and in love with the drama of epidemic scandal! Oh, to be so witless and trusting that it never occurs to you that it’s YOUR life that’s being remodeled by every vote and/or obstruction of a dysfunctional congress! Oh, the shock to learn that the data mining of the bad guys’ communiques, exhaustively combed through by government worker bees, includes your phone calls to Grandma and your credit card splurges at Amazon!
And last but not least, oh, the horror of discovering the country you love has betrayed you, even if you’ve smelled the perfume and turned a blind eye to the lipstick stains for seven — count ’em — long years.
Settle down, America, there’s nothing new to see here, move along. Lawmakers like Dianne Feinstein have made it perfectly clear that what’s going on in the National Security Agency today is the same stuff that’s been going on for years in an effort to ‘protect the nation.’
If we’re suddenly outraged and aghast at the level of information collected, or the fact that it’s been done covertly, we’re a day late and a dollar short by damned-near a decade.
I hear your anguished cry: by Gawd, they know what we buy and where, they know where we’re going and when, they access our photos, our videos and our e-mails! Yawn. Anything else got yer goat today?
You will have to pardon my cynicism but if all this comes as a surprise, shame on you for being as dense as the undiscovered bagel that rolled behind the refrigerator last November. If you’re in elementary school, you can be forgiven for not knowing the Patriot Act has us by the short hairs, but if you’re older than twelve, you must have heard about the National Security Agency and its access to the private communications of the average citizen.