I Have Nothing to Hide

"I have nothing to hide. Why should I care if the NSA has my phone records?”

This post is a prompt for others to craft story lines that explain "why" people should care about the FBI & NSA mass data collection and storage programs exposed by Edward Snowden and others. Here are a few rough sketches as examples. I don't even touch on political dissent. Hopefully similar stories can be produced in more compelling videos by someone with such talents.

Financial Executive:  Joe, an executive with a major Wall Street firm, has been known to take long lunches on occasion. What he has done those few times is his own business; he even has an 'agreement' with his wife about it. But his own business is about to become the business of a lot of other people. 

You see, the FBI is investigating one of Joe's colleagues, Tom, with whom Joe likes to have an occasional drink and plays golf. Tom has caught the FBI's attention and Joe is about to be identified in a 'suspicious activity report' (SAR). You see, Tom has also taken similar long lunches; that's how Joe learned about the lunch-time stress relievers if you will. 

The FBI is going to be making visits to other people who know Joe and ask them some... embarrassing questions. Joe will probably keep his job as a result of all of this, but his lunchtime exploits will no longer simply be his own business. 

A Simple Gardener:  Carl is a gardener for well-to-do people. Two of Carl's clients are under investigation by the FBI. One of the clients under investigation, Mr. Elliot, has been kind enough to allow Carl and his family use the family beach house. Carl is well read and Mr. Elliot enjoys conversations with Carl, so their communications are more frequent than would be expected for a gardener/client relationship. Carl's son has taken an interest in the Elliot's daughter, they occasionally exchange text messages, and though they aren't exactly 'friends' they are certainly acquainted. This raises the FBI's interest.

The FBI looks into Carl's records and takes a look at his son's records too. Carl's son has not been very care about what he says in texts and emails. Apparently, Carl's son has a few skeletons in his closet that are now about to make his life, and Carl's life, miserable. Most people think that small-time marijuana sales isn't a big deal; Carl's son sells just enough so that he gets his own for free. Carl is about to spend tens-of-thousands of dollars on lawyer bills. 

You get the idea... just because you think you don't have anything to hide, you might be surprised.

GDAE Podcast - Episode 43

We Are Wisconsin

• Security Industrial Complex: A concern of both conservatives and progressives. Coleen Rowley, former FBI agent discusses the glut of information being collected and the needle-in-a-haystack syndrome.


• Has the Sleeping Giant Awoken? Michael Moore Madison, WI speech, 3/5/11.
  

FBI Could Face Backlash from Left and Right

The recent raids by the FBI on Chicago and Minneapolis peace and justice activists is a bad omen for everyone concerned about civil liberties. Regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum, left or right, abuse of power by the government is antithetical to the founding principles of America.

We are experiencing a teachable moment about the potential power of a left/right coalition. The time-tested technique of "divide and conquer," used by the establishment to maintain power, breaks down when they cannot divide the common interests of people on the left and right.

These recent FBI raids didn't go unnoticed by bloggers on the right, as evidenced by a post on http://conservativetimes.org/?p=6431, which displays the range of conservative views. True, you have some on the right who are partisans who can take anything, "Obama eats vanilla ice cream", and twist it into an anti-Obama conspiracy. But they aren't principled conservatives and can be dismissed. However, others on the right get it.

The calculus is simple; combine the numbers of people on the left with the numbers on the right who share principled views on limits of government power and the FBI could be facing a potent backlash.

Sources:

First published on Challenge the Establishment Blog.

FBI: Uniformed

I just wrote a post about how the FBI employees are so uniformed that their biases are resulting in these raids on peace and social justice activist that tear at the fabric of our democracy... but poof! Blogger nixed it.

Bottom Line: We need to insist that one response to the Department of Justice General Inspector reports is that a major awareness training is conducted for FBI employees about the history of labor struggles, Palestinian struggles, US intervention in Central and South America, etc.

Nuf said for now.

For Your Convenience:

• Contact the Broadcast Media
• Contact the Newspapers
• Contact the US Senate
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources: