I used to be shocked or surprised when politicians and
government officials would defend their actions when they were caught. Now,
after seeing it so many times on the local, parish, state and federal level, I
just sit back and shake my head.
I’ve been pretty outspoken with my disdain for the federal
government bending and twisting the Patriot Act to now include compiling lists
of who ordinary citizens call on their cell phones and huge supercomputers
analyzing emails for keywords all under the guise of “protecting the country
from terrorism.”
In the last few hours, I’ve gotten several phone calls and
emails from friends who disagree with me and think that the government has the
right to do almost anything they want if it protects our country.
Earlier today, the National Security Agency chief, Gen.
Keith Alexander, said that all the snooping that the government has done has
helped prevent “potential terrorist threats” over 50 times since 9/11 including
a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
My “friends” each pointed to that and said, “So, what have
you got to say now?”
My answer is simple: So what?
We are never going to be 100% safe in our country and for
every “potential terrorist threat” (and, what exactly does that mean?), we’re
still going to have to deal with two knucklehead brothers from
Chechyna or somewhere else, who want to overthrow our way
of life one marathon at a time.
With all of our snooping prowess and massive supercomputers
we couldn’t stop two kids from buying some pressure cookers and fireworks and
making their own “bombs” and conducting their own act of terror.
In fact, the U.S. Government has already admitted that there
were no intelligence reports indicating that the Boston Marathon bombing, or
any bombing for that matter, would occur.
After the bombing, in the Los Angeles Times, NY Congressman Peter King said, "I received two top secret briefings
last week on the current threat levels in the United States, and there was no
evidence of this at all."
The fact remains
that our country has two porous borders, we have a flawed immigration system,
and we can’t keep track of students or visitors that, initially, come to our
country legally. Yet, we’re spying on our own people.
Should our
government be concerned with some individuals that are in our country, what
they do and who they talk with? Of course, with all of our technology and
resources we should have an idea who the “bad guys” are. And, it’s not every
Muslim.
We knew about the
Boston Marathon bombers, the FBI interviewed one of them, and we let him go and
chose to look the other way.
We saw the signs
of the Ft. Hood shooter and we chose to look the other way. Even after it was
exposed that his actions were clearly an act of terrorism, our President still
sugarcoats this cowardly action by classifying it as an “act of workplace violence”.
We have thousands
of foreigners here on student visas and many of them have stopped going to
school and faded into our country’s woodwork. And, we choose to look the other
way.
“We don’t have
the manpower to round up illegals”.
Yet, President
Obama can ask for $1 Billion for more IRS Agents to enforce ObamaCare rules.
We have troops
stationed in foreign countries fighting wars that should never have begun. We
give foreign countries Billions of Dollars in aid and their people hate
America.
We can’t build a
fence, a smart or a dumb fence or even a white picket fence, to secure our own
border but we can build supercomputers to scan the emails of every American
citizen?
Did you realize
that the guy in the next cubicle is a terrorist mastermind? Neither did I, but
that doesn’t stop our government from reading his emails and all the while
smiling and telling you, “We’re doing this for your own protection”.
Our country is
being overrun with illegal immigrants; we have antiquated laws allowing an
illegal immigrant to cross the border, push out a kid here, and Voila! you’re a
citizen – here’s where you sign up for welfare, food stamps and a free cell
phone. Call your relatives - they can come here too!
Yet, we can spend
hours debating whether Edward Snowden is a hero or he should be tried for
treason.
Treason? If you
watched ‘The Newsroom’ on HBO or watched Fox News in the past few years, you
already knew almost everything you know now – Snowden is just a face, someone to
attach blame to.
Did Snowden tell
us some specifics and fill in some gaps? Sure, but it’s not like we didn’t
already see the big picture. The FBI and IRS have had files on Millions of
law-abiding citizens for years. Now, those manila folders have been replaced by
sim cards in a building in Utah.
But, the reality
is, our government can’t tell us how many illegal immigrants are here, how many
foreigners came here on student or travel visas and stopped studying and
travelling, or come up with a plan to secure our border before we give 11
Million or 30 Million or whatever the number actually is, a “path to
citizenship” or amnesty, but, even as we speak, a government supercomputer is
analyzing an email for potential terrorist keywords that my mom sent to me
containing her recipe for Chicken Pot Pie.
Thankfully, the
recipe doesn’t call for using a pressure cooker, otherwise my mom and I might
be on another list somewhere.
Watch out for
exploding carrots though. They can be really hard to clean up.
