Who Will Protect Us?

As I write this piece, whistleblower, Edward Snowden, is currently in Moscow, having fled from the American authorities who are pursuing him for alerting the world to the fact that the American National Security Agency is spying not only on all its own citizens in America, but on just about everyone throughout the world.

This has sparked outrage in millions of people across the western world.

Not enough people, it should be said - because the mistaken belief that "if you have got nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" still seems to fool most people.

Sure, if you've got nothing to hide then the chances are that, for the moment, you will not suffer directly from having someone spy into every corner of your life, but what about those people who protect us from, say, abuses of power by state officials? - or from powerful corporations who are hurting people in some way?

Investigative journalists and whistleblowers certainly do have something to hide - certainly while they are researching their complaints and trying to bring them to public attention.

There could be a zillion things that they would wish to hide.

Who knows?

Maybe they cheated on their girlfriend 20 years ago. Or maybe they occasionally visited Barely Legal Teens while they were supposed to be working.

Maybe they were hooked on cocaine a decade ago.

Do we really want powerful bodies to be able to sully and, hence, silence these people in advance? - people who can help us to root out corruption, dishonesty, cheating, and far, far worse?

Do we really want powerful bodies to be able to monitor their every move?

What about the leaders and followers of protest movements, or of certain points of view?

How long would it be before the powerful bodies scuppered the reputations of the leaders and/or scared them off by digging up some dirt - and then, perhaps, associating the followers with that dirt?

So who will protect us from the growing powers-that-be if we allow them to access everything?

Who will be able to protect us?

No-one.

Because the powers-that-be would have enormous power - effectively, infinite power - with which to stop them.

And those people who already work for the powers-that-be will be monitored even more closely than the rest of us - because, of course, they have the potential to be a far greater threat to them.

They will have total control over everything.

And once they have achieved this, there will be nothing to stop them from enslaving you or from killing you - which they will do, if it suits them to do so.

Indeed, they are already enslaving you.

Look at your tax bill.

Look at who is getting all the money and the power.

The whole of history - even up to the present - shows us that when a group of people becomes too powerful, they will use that power to take more and more and more from those whom they presume to govern.

Even their lives.

....

Anyway. Here is a good piece by Paul Craig Roberts ...

Let's Call the NSA What it Really is