Can You Hear Me Now?

A Nation of Fools by Peary Perry (www.pearyperry.com)

“Can you hear me…now?”

I suppose I should consider changing my name to something like Rip Van Perry since it appears I have been asleep for quite sometime. Before I dozed off, I recall the candidate for the president of the United States, Barack Obama had been criticizing the Bush administration for being too invasive of the rights of the American citizens.

Now we find that one group (Moveon.org) who had worked long and hard to put Mr. O into the White House had this to say (July, 2008) about Mr. O’s flip flop on telecom surveillance:
“We’re disappointed in Senator Obama’s support of the compromise on FISA—the bill doesn’t go far enough in protecting our constitutional liberties and allows a free pass for phone companies who helped the President illegally wiretap innocent Americans. We hope Sen. Obama will honor his word and do everything he can to strip this immunity from the bill. He’s also said that accountability is very important to him, so we’re hoping he will follow up with a plan for how to protect our liberty and our security, along with a plan to bring lawbreakers to justice. Americans want those who violate the constitution to see consequences; it’s a core American value and a winning position for the election. This along with his strong stands on healthcare, the energy crisis and ending the war can help the Senator win in November.”
Of course, MoveOn.org must have believed the Obama promise that he would take care of their request in exchange for their support in helping him to get elected. I wonder how they feel now? It now appears that the fears of MoveOn.Org are going to come true. The FBI is pushing for the right to obtain logs from all mobile phone companies in order to track the movements of Americans. Read More at:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
What happened here? I was under the impression (obviously mistaken) that the Obama administration was going to put an end to the evil spying policies of the Bush/Cheney era. Now it seems that Mr. O is taking the position that none of us have any ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ when it comes to making cell calls. Better keep this in mind when you call your significant other and speak those little words between now and Valentines Day. You never know who will be listening.
In another swipe at our civil rights is the administrations request for the internet service providers to maintain a log of all of the web sites each one of us might choose to visit. This little discussion is taking place at this time and is approved by none other than good old President Barack…..read about this at:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10448060-38.html?tag=rtcol;pop

Obviously the internet has become a major part of our lives and there isn’t anyone who would deny that it has been used to further the criminal activities of some. But, the Obama administration seems to focus on throwing the baby out with the bath water in their implementation of any of their policies. Look at healthcare, we estimate that some 13-20 million citizens don’t have health insurance, so why not address those and leave the rest of us alone? The same logic (perhaps that’s the wrong word to use in relationship to anything to do with the government) applies to using the internet. Why would the government need to track where I go when they should focus on looking at the people committing crimes? Certainly we have no issue with warrants being issued to facilitate the investigation of criminals, but to give wholesale approval to store data on all of us seems to be overkill to me. I’m certain requiring the internet service providers to maintain huge amounts of information such as this would result in the costs of services to escalate. Of course, then we would have to build a large government agency to handle and process all of the information being passed along to them. More jobs to fill, more tax to support, less freedom….there’s change for you.

Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com