Through a PRISM, darkly

Me? Surprised by "PRISM?" Hardly. I remember the 1970s, when hearings were held on Capitol Hill, in "response" to revelations that the National Security Agency had been eavesdropping like crazy on Americans' phone calls and surreptitiously opening and reading our letters for more than two decades. Not to mention the malfeasance of the CIA and other agencies. One result of the nation-wide outrage was the 1978 establishment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, supposedly as a guard against warrentless spying by the "Intelligence Community." Well, the FISA Court has served as a kind of star chamber all along; its real function was only to facilitate these monstrous invasions of privacy. During the Bush years, things went from bad to worse, with FISA's 11-judge panel meeting regularly in a vault at the "Justice Department" (it still does) to approve extensive wiretapping. It's such a goddamn "Kangaroo Court!" According to FISA provisions, in order to spy on American citizens, a warrant of sorts is required - 72 hours AFTER the surveillance begins! During the George W. Bush regime, the FISA Court turned down a mere FIVE requests to spy on the citizenry, to the best of my knowledge. So I was disgusted, of course, when reports of the latest enormous "monitoring" were made public on Wednesday and Thursday. But shocked I was not. And I cannot believe anything is going to improve anytime soon, what with Obama's spirited defense of the indefensible. And the underwhelming apathy, overall, of the American citizenry. Still, I'm in complete awe of Glenn Greenwald for bravely publicizing this. I only hope he manages to emerge unscathed; he currently lives in Brazil most of the time - but that may not be nearly far enough away! Most Americans, apparently, aren't too worried about giving up more of their liberties. Most Americans are extremely happy to exchange what's left of their rights for that most elusive and illusory state of affairs. The tens of millions of severely misguided among us call it "Security."