Most of the world mourned the deaths of those shot in Paris. But some have been celebrating those deaths. Neocons have been enjoying their raging anti-Muslim erections and the National Security Agency (NSA) has probably been celebrating because the scrutiny of their illegal surveillance program is being silenced:
The push to reform the National Security Agency isn’t getting any easier.
After a reform bill was narrowly blocked on the Senate floor late last year, civil libertarians hoped that an upcoming deadline to reauthorize some of the spy agency’s controversial powers would give them another opportunity to force changes.
But the attacks in Paris last week, where gunmen killed 12 at a satirical newspaper and 4 at a kosher market, is making that job harder, and strengthening the resolve of the NSA’s backers.
“I hope the effect of that is that people realize … the pendulum has swung way too far after [leaker Edward Snowden],” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters on Thursday.
“Hopefully people realize that the NSA plays a very, very important role in keeping Americans safe, and my guess there will be less of a desire to hamstring them unnecessarily,” he added.
You almost have to admire these NSA apologists. Even though the current surveillance apparatus failed to detect the Paris shooters’ plans beforehand its apologists are claiming it’s necessary to thwart the next one. And people are going to lap up this bullshit because they trust people in authority.
There should be a new rule in politics. If an agency’s illegal actions failed to stop a tragedy then nobody should be able to use that tragedy to justify the agency’s illegal actions. But then there wouldn’t be any justification for the state and I would be enjoying a world where a handful of people aren’t dictating what the rest of us can and cannot do.