Security and the Constitution

Our voracious security establishment seems to have convinced our legislators that we can have the constitution or security, but not both.  Both Democrats and Republicans are opting to dump the Constitution, turning our day to day life over to the intelligence overlords who'll keep us safe.  Sign Jeff Merkley's petition if you disagree with that.  Counterpunch has a good analysis of the situation, well worth reading.

Constitutions are often needed to guard against political excess, the conscience of a state when its representatives have ceased to have any.  The responses from the Washington elite suggest the anaesthetised state they have fallen into – liberties need to be shredded to protect liberties; legality demands bouts of illegality and so forth.  Nothing to be surprised about, claimed Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga).  “This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] authority, and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this” (Forbes, Jun 6).
Even more striking of the amoral numbness of such surveillance activities is Chambliss’ remark that “we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information, and its simply what we call ‘meta data’.”  Give it a cryptic, functional label, and people are bound to go along with it.  That’s if they even know about it.
Senator Diane Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has again made it clear that the mass surveillance of public chatter and communications is entirely appropriate.  The Republic is besieged by enemies external and internal.  “As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the last seven years.” The message: This is normal.  Stop being so wet about it.