Big brother is listening

Hayden: The Spook in Your Phone By Robert Scheer

"Michael V. Hayden, nominated by President Bush to head the CIA, is the man responsible for the most extensive attack ever on the privacy of U.S. citizens. As USA Today reveals, it was during the six years that Hayden ran the ultra-secret National Security Agency that the Feds gained access to the phone calling records of most Americans.

By cross-checking those phone record against other readily available databases, the Feds are now in a position to profile the intimate daily lives of the citizenry--providing a tool that no Big Brother could ever have dreamed of obtaining before the advent of modern telecommunications technology. Yet this assault on our freedom was never disclosed to the public, debated by our elected representatives or tested by the courts.

Most disturbing is the revelation by USA Today that leading members of Congress-- Democrats as well as Republicans--had been told of this ghastly assault on our freedom but did nothing to thwart it. They must now be held accountable. So too General Hayden, who obviously should not be trusted with running the CIA spy agency after having engineered such massive spying on the American public."

Big brother, the 2 minutes hate, the memory hole, lack of privacy...Orwell was right. Add to that the 14 defining characteristic of fascism: powerful and continuing nationalism (think flag lapel pins and car magnets); disdain for the recognition of human rights (think Guantanamo); identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause (think terrorists and immigrants); supremacy of the miiltary (think big pentagon budget), rampant sexism (think anti-choice, anti-contraception), controlled mass media (think propaganda on the TV); obsession with national security (think Bush and Co.); religion and government are entertwined (think faith based group federal funding); corporate power is protected (no kidding); labor power suppressed (think fear of joining a union); obsession with crime and punishment (think people willing to forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism); rampant cronyism and corruption (think Katrina); fraudulent elections (think Florida and Ohio)....and does this add up to the country I grew up in and served in the military? Hardly! This is a place I do not recognize. A place going somewhere very, very scary.