Category Archives: The Lockdown of America

The government is moving quickly to erase any remaining shred of privacy. It has already become the all-knowing, all-seeing Orwellian Big Brother. But it’s not content to stop there…

Hell Hath No Fury like the U.S. Caught Red-Handed

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The Assange drama continues, with U.S. puppet Great Britain threatening to throw diplomatic treaties out the window to satisfy the rage of the U.S., caught red-handed, and now acting like a woman scorned.

The behavior of the U.S. with respect to Wikileaks has been shameful and an embarrassment The U.S. has spun out of control and become megalomaniacal. Even corrupt politicians know that when you’re caught in the act, you’ve got to come clean if you want a future with the American people. Our government acts as if it were a vindictive and petty god; alternatively as a small child that’s not getting its way and having a tantrum. No wonder there are bumper stickers everywhere: “I love this country. It’s the Government I’m afraid of”.

Haven’t we grown beyond the need for evil state secrets, abuse of our neighbors and partners, and lies as a way of conducting business? Wikileaks only proved what many of us had suspected, and the Government isn’t denying it. How could it? Instead of apologizing, saying it’s learned from its’ mistakes, and pledging to turn over a new leaf, it’s acting like an enraged petty dictator in denial (sound like anyone we know?), empaneling secret grand juries, putting out secret death warrants, and strong-arming nations in futile and unseemly attempt to punish those who have exposed its’ unseemly behavior. As long as the bad behavior continues, the U.S. will continue to see a rapid erosion of respect from the International community. Unless, of course, it confuses fear with respect.

They Can’t Hide Their Prying Eyes

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A friend of mine described his recent hiring experience with a medium-large corporation. Normally, in these times, getting a good job with a “good company” should be a cause for celebration. But my friend felt sick to his stomach, and was shaking with fear, and mainly, loathing.

He had been required to fill out a form called a “request for background check”. The title made it sound like it was something he wanted, not something he was being forced to do. While the company insisted it was not required, they did say that if he didn’t fill it out, he would not be hired.

The form had a lengthy disclaimer section, in which it clearly stated that all information received in the process of the background check would be shared with the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the litany of federal bureaucracies went on.

It didn’t take much research to determine what this was about. It is more invasion of privacy by the government, and a technique by which a citizen’s right to privacy can be (further) circumvented by “sharing information” between “consenting parties”.

What’s amazing about the information I’m receiving on the government’s attempts to fulfill the mandate of the officially denied “Total Information Awareness” program is that it seems the government is not satisfied with having just one copy of a piece of information: they want multiple copies! When you look at the broader picture, it’s as if the government is suffering from an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), or hording disorder. They are spending fantastic amounts of (deficit) money collecting the same information over and over again. It’s not just destructive economically and ethically, it’s psychotic behavior.

To put this in perspective, the information is being collected to “protect us from terrorists”. My regular street-check shows that the only party afraid of terrorists is the government, and most of the people on the street find the government’s obsession with terrorism a joke. Most people have already figured out that if terrorists wanted to strike America, we’d have suicide bombers blowing themselves up in malls and fast-food restaurants all over. Few of the people in my street checks believe the government is competent to prevent terror attacks. To the contrary, they don’t credit the government with the capability of doing anything but wasting time and money. Any “shoe-bomber” type terrorist interventions are credited to alert citizens, Airlines, and the like. And, such incidents always have the mark of lunacy about them; the grand schemes are always attached after law-enforcement gets involved.

The picture that is rapidly emerging is one of a corrupt bureaucracy that has run amok, and threatens to be crushed under the weight of the excessive and redundant information it is collecting and hording about its citizens.

Given the degree of invasiveness being reached we can only hope that the self-induced crushing begins soon.

[this article has received the new tag: “The Lockdown of America”]