NSA Prism Data Mining, or Joyfully Interacting With the Telescreen

It’s like Americans are living in a North Korean Disneyland. There are rumors that the charming staff might be out to harm us, and are definitely spying on us, and we keep getting proof it’s true. But there’s so much to look at: the marching band, the bright colors, the fireworks, the fatty foods, the clean outfits, and that goddamned three-fingered mouse with the huge ears that keeps telling us everything’s all right, just be happy.

And we love it. As long as there are enough pairs of Mickey Mouse ears for everyone, and most people can afford tickets to get onto the cheapest rides, we’ll allow the dark government agencies to tap our phones and, as a whistle blower intelligence official said, quite literally watch your ideas form as you type.

That program is called Prism. The horrible news is that everything we do online is recorded or held onto by the NSA and Washington’s Intelligence agencies. This comes on the heels of the other scandal about Verizon handing over all of their customers’ call metadata, every single day, to the US government.

It’s for our homeland, a grizzled Diane Feinstein barked. That witch. This has been happening for years, she said (you can see a clip of this in the video below).

Every gross violation of the Constitution and common sense committed by the Obama or Bush administration has that Orwellian chant of, “It’s to stop terrorism” as its justification.

The American people have lost every shred of their First and Fourth Amendments. We’ve known it was happening, but still, it’s unsettling when the official documents are released. Yet, most Americans don’t seem to care. Why should they? There’s plenty of sports on TV, and Netflix subscriptions are cheap enough to indulge in plenty of violent, degenerative programs and movies. Hell, most of us are having fun with this soft tyranny.

As long as everybody gets an iPhone, what need is there to keep abreast of the reports that seem to come weekly now, about how you’ve basically got no rights if any government agency wants to challenge them, and your communications are being monitored, saved, and could be used against you if there’s ever a need for it.

It’s 1984, and instead of trying to avoid the ever-present gaze of the telescreen, we are joyfully interacting with it. Our oppressors are far more intelligent than we are, and they’ve crafted an entire existence that seems fun and trendy, but has really become an un-alarming way of herding us into using a handful of devices and communicative services, offered by a handful of companies, so we can be monitored and manipulated by a handful of people.

For years now, alternative news sites have warned that Google, Skype, Apple, and most of the popular email services have been collecting our information, or being used by the government to mine our data. Yet, that was largely considered a conspiracy theory. Maybe a little too Orwellian to think while you stare blankly at your computer screen, it’s kind of staring back at you.

The CIA admitted in March that they try to “collect everything” they can and “hang on to it forever.” Two days in a row, The Guardian blew open with actual top-secret proof at just how devastating our surveillance society has become.

Earlier, we learned that the IRS was targeting conservative groups that were looking for tax exemptions.

We all remember that on New Year’s Eve Night last year, Barack Obama signed into law the NDAA bill with the provision to indefinitely detain any US citizen deemed a threat by the president or his council of executioners. I remember it well because I broke the story about a man in Koreatown who shit his pants upon hearing the frightening news. In disgust and retaliation against what he thought was a so-called “liberal” president acting like a right-wing tyrant, he sent his soiled underwear to the White House.

You should consider taking similar action. But really, this is not a funny matter.

We remember also the DOJ’s seizing of two months worth of Associated Press communications. And please let us not forget the Attorney General finally admitted that the Obama administration’s overseas drone strikes have killed four Americans so far. Without due process. This was after they’d lied to the American people again and again either by keeping silent on the matter, or flat out claiming that drone strikes did not exist.

Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs came clean months ago on TV to say he’d been told to always deny any questions about drone strikes. He was told to say the program did not exist. So why, dear friends, would we ever listen to this president or his people, ever again?

Because all of this stuff has happened incrementally, and we have a celebrity president who chats it up on TV shows like The View, Americans seem to think these very serious blows to our liberty and Constitution do not matter, or are not that serious. I mean, a guy who always looks so snappy, who always wears a suit, and who prances off his Air Force One, how could he lie to us? Or mean us harm?

As long as the ballgames continue, and people can bicker over the stats and the players, and as long as the online movie subscriptions remain affordable and streaming our favorite Blockbuster films and sitcoms, I doubt very much the majority of Americans will ever become alarmed. Not unless they lose their entertainment. Not unless there’s a noticeable chip in that garish American facade to suggest that really, things are not all right.

As Bill Hicks loved to say, “Go back to sleep America, your government is in control. Go back to sleep American, your government loves you.”

It’s probably too late to affect any change. Imagine trying to reverse all the damage that’s been done? Imagine trying to dissolve the secret courts and committees. How could we scale back the egregious abuse of power both Bush and Obama have signed into law? We may already be locked up in our technocratic prison, it’s just that you don’t know it. Did you really think a society leading up to 1984 would be obvious? That MSNBC and FOX News would cover it straight?

It is 1984 in this nation, and we aren’t even trying to avoid it.

“Like” Dear Dirty America on Facebook