Classic Catch 22!

"Obama Justice Department have argued individuals and organizations must be able to show they were monitored by the surveillance program to have standing and challenge it in court.

"But the program's target list is secret. The U.S. government won't tell potential targets whether they have been monitored. Therefore, the government contends, no one has standing." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/06/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Spying-on-Americans-phase-2/UPI-75011357461000/ - ixzz2HQS7khMr



This is reminiscent of Orwell--1984, Animal Farm--but this is real life! The NDAA gives the Administration the power to monitor any communications between anyone in the US and anyone overseas. If, in some cases, there have to be warrants issued by the FISA Court (a special court set up to oversee covert surveillance), warrants can be highly generalized: they might even permit surveillance on a whole class of potential suspects.

There is a whole lot going on behind closed doors! So far, the people who are supervising it, making use of it, are apparently doing so for what might pass as "the Common Good," as in protecting the US from terror attacks. What is scary: there are so few checks on this surveillance, even in the cantankerous Congress! If no one has a need to know, and it's classified, then no one will know. Except those who take unto themselves the need to know--like the President, the intelligence heads, Defense and Justice at the top levels.

And, there are ominous signs, like the upending of General Petraeus, and before him, Governor Eliot Spitzer, when both were caught in the general surveillance web, apparently by accident.

In the hands of a Stalin, or, arguably, a Nixon, the powers the President has amassed in the realm of National Security would easily lead to the kind of dictatorship Orwell described in 1984.

I wouldn't argue Obama has made the best choices, or that he's egoless in wielding power. But so far, it doesn't look as if he aspires to be the kind of dictator that sweeps opposition aside; or one who's driven to re-make the nation in his own image, through his overpowering personality.

Has no one in power really thought this through? The power they've seized since 9/11--in order to safeguard the nation--is the power to control the nation, but not the world.

US Drones may terrorize Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, but look what all our vaunted power has gotten us there: recruits for al Qaeda. In Afghanistan: a lull before we leave. After we leave, who knows what will happen.

The American Empire is turning inward: the elites--government and corporate--are gaining the power to control us, power much greater than was held by Roman Senators over their serfs and slaves.

If the bipartisan drive towards austerity drives people to revolutionary desperation, then State repression will be necessary--for the survival of our Roman Senators--and the machinery will be ready to use.