Right in the middle of this whole NSA snooping scandal, our government has issued an urgent terrorist threat based on what it calls “unusual chatter.” What an amazing coincidence; surely it must be some sort of a prank. It has become axiomatic that we no longer believe anything that our government tells us, especially when it is accompanied by the strident panic of chickens squawking in the barnyard. It is a sad and pathetic thing that the republic has been reduced to this.
You cannot protect against every perceived threat. Life is a risk, and sometimes we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The cost of preventing every single possible threat is simply not worth the benefit. And, as always happens with these things, the agencies are out of control.
Joke: There is a secret program inside the NSA to create terrorist chatter so that the NSA and its ilk can respond to it. Tweak the parameters of the statistical packages used to massage the data, and you are certain to find “unusual chatter.” And then what? Start screaming “Fire!” Right when the Secret Agencies are feeling a little heat from the civil libertarians.
What it all seems to boil down to is the creation and maintenance of vast bureaucracies of people who want their jobs and generous benefits. We get that, but like most cops, the keepers of the secrets are brutish and arrogant, and not accountable to anything or anyone. Why, they are probably already reading this even as we write it. The day will soon come when just complaining about the loss of our civil liberties will be considered a breach of our national security.
