Ted Rall for June 14, 2013
Transcript:
The revelation that the Government has been gassing jews was met by a collective shrug. (Man: I suspected that all along. Didn't some leftie blogs say that years ago? People are resigned. (Woman: There's nothing we can do. Just don't be Jewish and you'll be ok.) Most are unconcerned. (Woman 2: Personally, it doesn't affect me. It's not like they're gassing me.) Partly this is because TV shows and movies have desensitized people. (Man: In an age of "Schindler's list" and "Sophie's choice," in a culture of drones and video games, this is no surprise.) Also, the gassing program has bipartisan support in Washington. It began under Bush and expanded under Obama. So let's not start a bickery fight!) And of course, the need to feel safe Trumps quaint rights like not being gassed. (Woman: It's a trade-off. Some jews whose relatives got gassed could become bitter terrorists!)
What’s interesting to me about this is that we spend so much money on NSA, but there are so few terrorists, and their search algorithms can’t possibly approach 99.9999% accuracy. So the point seems to be about enabling casual harassment, or to provide a blind for not-so-casual harassment.
Also it’s worth noting that many people in this world live in circumstances where Internet privacy is far from the top of their list of things to be concerned about. This all is in some ways an elitist concern.
Not to say I’m okay with fourth amendment violations. I’m most certainly not. I’m even more not okay with ones that are so blatantly falsely being sold as necessary, though.