"If you see what I see you'd know that freedom 'aint free." ~Brother Ali

I was left feeling so sad and scared after a conversation with a smart, progressive girlfriend. She flippantly dismissed my comments about Edward Snowden claiming that she "didn't give a shit if someone read [her] email' ... This isn't about someone reading my email. I'm not doing anything that interesting.. really...

            This is why I'm fussing about: 

            Edward Snowden, pronounced “My Personal Hero,” or “Awesom McHugeNuts,” is a [former] IT geek who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA). A little over a month ago he blew the lid off a MASSIVE fucking invasion of my (and your) privacy; he leaked information about American and European mass surveillance programs that include interception of telephone data & all kinds of crazy ass internet surveillance. He was charged with espionage and theft of government property and I’m fairly certain James Bond is after his skinny white ass. Several countries have offered him asylum but (of, fucking, course) the United States is doing their damndest to prevent that.

           *giggle, snort*

            But let’s go back to the whistle heard ‘round the world, rather, what I thought was around the world but it turns out no one has heard about it, and well, if they have – they aren’t talking about it and no one (here) is doing anything about it. I shake my head at you people. Maybe you just don’t know what’s going on though? So here’s the skinny:

On June sixth Snowden contacted a journalist and a documentary film maker and they all met in Hong King and began publishing information about the mass surveillance goings on in the GurdianNewspaper

In the first video Edward says:  

"Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently, by orders of magnitude, to where it’s getting to the point you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer."

I am terrified that more people posted about the Chicago blackhawks winning the cup than I've seen people post about this. terrified. Why isn't anyone talking about this? I HOPE it's because they are scared to talk about it. Fear I can deal with. I have fears. But we are not the sum of our fears, knowledge is power and knowledge will release you from your fears. Are you people thinking about it? Are you reading about it?

In the same interview I referenced above Snowden goes on to say:
"....The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. People will see in the media all of these disclosures. They’ll know the lengths that the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally to create greater control over American society and global society, but they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests.”

And if we do nothing, he postulates (smartly, I might add):

“And then months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse, until eventually there will be a time where policies will change, because the only thing that restricts the activities of the surveillance state are policy. Even our agreements with other sovereign governments, we consider that to be a stipulation of policy rather than a stipulation of law. And because of that, a new leader will be elected, they’ll flip the switch, say that because of the crisis, because of the dangers that we face in the world, you know, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it and it’ll be turnkey tyranny.”

Then this morning Ron Wayden released a statement saying he thinks the Obama administration might be considering “scaling back” the mass phone data collection.  My eyes are at this point rolled pretty far in the back of my head, but it is progress, a teeny tiny step in the right direction, and I am a big fan of progress so; yay? I don’t know. I really just don’t know. 

Thoughts?  
 ~BBS

P.S...I was just publicly accused of "tin-foil hatting" this "a bit much." ....said the boyfriend of the girl who I reference in the first paragraph of this post; who basically told me to fuck off when I expressed my concern over this matter... They are both so smart and in the know.. I really am baffled by all of this. good thinkin' food for me though. *straightens out tin hat* *flips you off*

P.P.S...
this just in!!!! (how did I fail to mention this!?! #fail) Edward Snowden's girlfriend is SUPER DELICIOUS HOT