Spying as a form of censorship

[struggle4progress]

<Paul K. McMasters ..
Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center ..
[e-mail] >
Sunday, August 27, 2006

.. In Maine on Aug. 21, federal prosecutors went to court to keep state utility regulators and Verizon from revealing information about whether the company violated laws protecting customer calling data and other confidential records by participating in the NSA's domestic-surveillance program. The U.S. Justice Department has filed similar suits in Missouri and New Jersey.

Last month, a federal judge in California turned back the government's efforts to invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss a lawsuit in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation charged that AT&T was cooperating with the NSA in spying on the domestic and international communications of Americans.

In all, more than 17 class-action lawsuits from 13 different federal court districts alleging telecommunications companies' complicity in government eavesdropping on private communications have been consolidated in the court of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco ..

If security trumps freedom, then the question arises as just what it is that we are protecting. Freedom of speech, even dissent, is not just at the core of our freedom, it is an essential component of security ..

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/191322/3/

[PATRICK]

1. The effect

-oddly on people who do not know even half of how bad it really is- is intimidating. Watch what you say on the phone. Don't demonstrate. Watch out who you associate with. The vague fears are astounding subliminal homage to fascism they don't even know about, but sense in the air well enough. The fear is also vague. Police. Your job. Getting on a "list".

People concerned about your simple postings on the net(which they do not read) are not welcome demonstrations of friendly concern much less good citizenship. THAT is the real work of repression which is always, whatever its cruelty and scope, the work of a minority against only some chosen targets. The spying itself is not as important as its mere possibility and the atmosphere, the pall it spreads over the fogbound population. Hunkering down from what?? It fairly guarantees that the vague fears will produce more actual dangers and whimsical attacks on individuals. It is the laziest and ugliest and most dismaying surrenders.

And you know then, that what you thought was idiosyncratic political activism, slightly off base and controversial, has a hidden silent base of people(the majority of all spectrums) locked in the basement pulling you down out of the light they, at last, tell you they know is there.