Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny

Dimmu Borgir has the weirdest song titles sometimes.

I wasn't really going to mention this stupid bull shit, but I get more enraged every day I read something about it.

How is it that one of the most flagrant abuses of governmental power in recent months is being investigated not for the abuse itself or the questionable legality of the whole thing, but, rather, for how the media got a hold of the information.

What the raped baby Jesus is wrong with you bitches?

I'm terribly surprised by any of this, but, as a journalist, I am mortally terrified of this kind of shit. This isn't the sort of thing that should happen in a democracy. The NSA can already get away with a whole lot of stuff, so why make this a big deal? Hell, why not put it in the Patriot Act? My biggest concern is the, "our enemies now know something they shouldn't," attack. Excuse me? So, the media - trying to do it's duty to expose governmental abuse and excesses - is compromising American security by saying, "hey, this thing might be illegal, and there's no real oversight," and then pressuring for answers? That's bullshit. I am now being told, by my government, that I should not do anything that makes them look bad. Welcome to fascism.

I don't know if it's illegal or not (I hope it is found to be illegal because this scares me), but I fail to see how this program has actually helped. Maybe that's a good thing, but I think the best thing we can do is take the more free society route and just accept that we may get attacked and people might die. I hope that it doesn't happen, but maybe, just maybe, freedom is actually worth dying for in ways that fall outside of that jingoistic nonsense.

I will close on this note: China, USSR, and a host of other countries have or had the same sort of powers that the FBI et. al. are clamoring for and they are no closer to stopping their, "problems". China still has Falun Dafa, the triads are still going strong, Russia wasn't able to stop the Russian mob, and the Chechens are still causing hell. What makes this country think we'll fare any better?

-Thomas