Now Spying on Americans

"After the New York Times disclosed the eavesdropping in December,
the White House dubbed it a "terrorist surveillance program" and said
it involved only international communications by people with "known links"
to al-Qaeda and its allies. The Washington Post reported in February
that about 5,000 Americans had been subject to eavesdropping under
the program and that nearly all of them had been cleared of suspicion."
May 12, 2006
Washington Post

Maybe back in February, the question we should have asked was
"Just how are you FINDING the international
communications without listening to the national communications first?"

If we had asked that question, we'd have had our answer this week....opps,
turns out they ARE listening. Well, they say they aren't, they're just
amassing our records for "data"....according to USA Today,
the telephone companies are removing the names and addresses of
their customers from the records they give the NSA. Just like Justice,
Data is supposedly blind.

How goddamn dumb do they think we are, anyhow? (I sound like Seth now,
don't I? Please tell me I sound like Seth.
I so much admire his rightous anger and his ability to speak it well)
Just because AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and
BellSouth Corp. say they are removing our names and
addresses from the TWO TRILLION call records they have forwarded
to NSA we are supposed to believe that they are? Are we
supposed to believe that NSA doesn't know who we are? That NSA really
doesn't have that information? That NSA can't get that information?
My ass NSA doesn't have or can't access that information. It took me
all of 5 minutes to find
this, this and this for absolutely free
on The Internet. Like the government can't afford to do the same thing.

"Afford" brings me to another interesting point. Did you know that NSA
has no obligation to report it's budget to the people like us who
finance that same budget? That information, along with information
regarding it's size and workforce numbers is deemed confidential
under federal law.

Sweet, huh? Not only do we have no idea what the hell they're
doing to us, we also have no idea what it's costing us to let
them do it to us, even though we're the ones who are paying for it.
(and in more way than one, apparently.)

It's a good thing we're a rich country. It's a good thing we're a
rightous country. It's a good thing our government is concerned
enough about its citizens and our children that they are willing
and able to spend what probably amounts to billions on collecting
our domestic phone records in an attempt to locate International
Terrorists. It's a damn good that our tax dollars are being put to
such good use. Good, good, good, it's all just so damn GOOD, isn't it?

Oh wait -
United States ranks 2nd Highest in the Top 10 Industrial Nations in
Infant Mortality is not such a good thing. According to the CDC's
statistics (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_17.pdf)
on infant mortality, in 2005 there were just over 26,000 infant deaths.
That's TWENTY SIX THOUSAND babies -and that's about how many babies
die in the good old safe United States of America each and
every year.

I'm not a mathematician but I think it's safe to say your odds are
better of surviving a terrorist attack than they are of being safely
born....even though we've only been seriously fighting terrorists
since 2001, and we've been birthing babies forever.

It's all in the way your tax dollars work.

Just don't call me on the phone to talk about it, ok?