By John Schwartz
February 11, 2014
There really is no way to sugarcoat this – The surveillance apparatus that the U.S. government has assembled is more dangerous than generally acknowledged. It is just what a totalitarian regime would require. If devoted to such a purpose, these tools would make us the ever-monitored servants of an omniscient state.
The tools of the NSA are so extensive and sophisticated that I doubt the world’s real totalitarians possess their equal. George Orwell foresaw the general outline, but he could not conceive the scope of possible control.
Though our polity is much dented, we have not descended to totalitarianism. But these ubiquitous surveillance tools are not compatible with a democracy, any more than a force of 50 million secret service agents would be, even if they mostly stayed at the office playing solitaire.
No matter the administration, this surveillance machine has to go. Join us in fighting back against mass surveillance: https://thedaywefightback.org/
I welcome your feedback. As a reminder, Voqal has several Twitter handles; tweets from me will feature the hashtag #AstheSpectrumTurns.
Until next time,
John-