SOMETHING TO FEAR

Proof that the government is spying on all its citizens has finally made the headlines. This activity has been surmised for quite some time; it was self-evident by NSA's construction of a huge $2,000,000,000.00 data center in Bluffdale, Utah. The humongous size of that facility cannot be explained except for the storage demands domestic spying requires.

 

The information leak making headlines was a subpoena for all Verizon customer phone records. But rest assured Verizon is not the only telecom served with this type of subpoena – they all have been. In fact, Apple was taken to task some time ago because the data it provided did not positively identify the person associated with the data. The bottom line is that all our phone calls, text messages, emails, and web browsing is being stored by the government. But the extent of this surveillance is undisclosed because the action is kept secret by court gag orders.

 

I read posts on the Internet from people who are not concerned. Their take on the matter is that they have nothing to hide, so this ‘big brother’ activity does not alarm them in the least.

 

The people who are not concerned by this are lacking common sense. If the IRS is exercising widespread viewpoint discrimination in the application of their policies, what makes anyone think other areas of government are not doing the same? If persons in the military are now having their careers curtailed because they post on a blog that they perceive children do better with both a mom and a dad, what makes anyone think that the expression of any viewpoint will be free of punitive action by a person in power that disagrees?

 

Let’s face it. Catholics are taking a beating from the government because certain provisions of ObamaCare violate their longstanding sincerely held religious beliefs. Rest assured that their communications on that issue are being scrutinized by the government. They are given the same level of attention as any "domestic terrorist" – a term that has been used to characterize them.

 

I am not a Catholic. So none of this should trouble me in the least. WRONG! Catholicism has been a major world religion for some time. If they are being targeted by the government for their popular longstanding viewpoints, any viewpoint is now a candidate for harassment by the heavy hand of government. One would think that Catholics have ‘nothing to hide’ and therefore should have no concerns that ‘big brother’ is watching. But that simply is not the case anymore, as indicated by leaks of what is really going on in various government agencies.

 

When you express any opinion that goes counter to that of someone in a position of power, unless you do it in person privately (and they do not share it), chances are good that person in power will discover it and use the full power of their governmental agency to make your life miserable.

 

So, what we suspected for some time is now documented: Our cherished “Freedom of Speech” has been extinguished at the NSA facility in Bluffdale, Utah. And the IRS will make you pay.