Published 15 January 2006

(word count: 750)

The Prezidat of the USSA has piously declared his Self-given right to spy on anyone anywhere anytime and for any reason that can even vaguely be associated with the vaguely defined War on Some Terrorists.  (Definitions: If freedom fighters are somewhere opposing the oppressive yoke of an American-friendly, i.e., American-bought, government, they're terrorists.  If terrorists are attacking an anti-American regime, they're freedom fighters.)

Bush defended the spying by claiming that it was limited to intercepting international communications only between people in Arabic countries and people in America who are known to use Arabic numerals.  When an alert journalist pointed out that Arabic numerals are used throughout western civilization, the president appeared angry.  "Well, that's just plain wrong," he was allegedly quoted as saying.  "Americans use American numerals, whether they're from the western or eastern part of our great civilization."

The reaction by the DCcratic governing class to the revelation that the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans in America since 2001 was swift, decisive and predictable – hunt down and punish the traitorous insidercrat who leaked the truth to the unwashed American multitudes who have no legitimate need for such knowledge.

In other words, don’t punish any law-breakers; punish the whistle-blower.

Sort of like the mob purging a snitch from its midst while patting their hit man on the back.

But the NSA (known to some as the Nosy Snooping Asswipes) aren't the only spybots in town.  The official Department of Defense website acknowledges fifteen snoop groups in the country.  (Warning!  Don’t try this at home! C|Net reports that many gov websites, including DoD, are using permanent cookies or web bugs to track visitors to their sites in direct violation of fed laws.  Use your employer’s computer like I did.)

So it's not just the NSA.  It's open season on Americans for all the federal spy gangs.  Stories abound about the Pentagon spying on anti-war demonstrators in Vermont and San Diego, the DoD surveilling peace groups in Florida, and the FBI eavesdropping on Quakers and human rights groups.

And everybody is doing data mining, the digital spy game of digging deep into peoples' privates in the hopes of rooting out a, guess what, "terrorist."  A 2004 General Accounting Office survey found that 52 fed agencies are currently running 131 data mining operations with another 68 planned.

Local govgoons can't resist playing I Spy themselves.  Colorado Springs and Denver dicks were caught with their noses in the lookie jar, stealing peeks at the private lives of individuals and groups including the Justice and Peace Commission, Citizens for Peace in Space, Colorado Right to Life, and the state Libertarian Party, which they branded a militia.  (The real danger with these intelligence operatives is their intelligence.  Unless, of course, those Rocky Mountain oyster LPers really were packin' heat in their Operation Politically Homeless booths.)  Meanwhile, Chicago cops eyed the American Friends Service Committee while a California National Guard intelligence unit "meant to help local law enforcement deal with terrorist threats" was busily scrutinizing a women's peace group.  (See definition of "terrorists" above.)

It's gotten so difficult to tell the players apart that typical Districtcrats finally called for a typical bureaubrain solution to the problem of bureaucracy bloat – don’t deflate, create yet another supercratic überagency to rule them all.  Thus was born, on December 8, the Director of National Intelligence, sort of an Office of Homeland Security for spookworks.

Of course, libertarians understand that the logic behind ever-expanding spy programs is to spawn ever more political power bases so well-connected career cronycrats can build their personal empires, feel important, and rub shoulders and buttocks with name brand politicos while sucking up six-figure salaries and bloated bennies and sweetheart pensions plucked from taxpayer paychecks.

Which may yet produce positive scenarios for us unwashed American multitudes in the short run.  Political rivalry creates animosity, envy, jealousy, greed, infighting, power struggles and turf wars.  So many spydroids will be spying on each other that the rest of us, while largely impoverished by forking over our taxbucks to the snoopercrats, can otherwise go about our personal business.

Future news item:  DC transpocrats are vigorously denying that one of their Pennsylvania Avenue spycams recorded a black Director of National Intelligence sedan tailing a black NSA sedan tailing a black CIA sedan tailing a black FBI sedan tailing a black Homeland Security sedan trailing a khaki County Deputy Sheriff’s Clandestine Surveillance and Covert Ops Toyota RAV4 tailing his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend for wearing dad’s old tie-dyed peace symbol tee shirt.