Summary: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet “See Something, Say Something” Napolitano says there’s no reason for people’s fears to be raised about a surveillance state, even in the wake of Edward Snowden’s exposing of the NSA’s PRISM project. Besides, we’ve got plenty of checks and balances in place that would prevent any agency from misusing people’s personal data. Napolitano even referred to a “privacy officer” who is “constantly reviewing [their] policies and procedures.That should make us feel better, knowing that they have someone going over their policies all the time. And approving of them. And why shouldn’t we believe that? They want surveillance cameras everywhere. They want surveillance drones everywhere. By 2020, we’ll likely have more than 30,000 drones watching over us. Practically nothing we do is secret anymore. Everything we do on a computer or a cell phone is tracked, monitored, recorded and stored. It sounds like they’re “going willy-nilly and using any kind of data [they] can gather.” Speaking of an “Orwellian state,” remember this from 1984: "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. That pretty much describes our situation today in the “land of the free.” The NSA revelations show us that at any given moment, some bureaucrat or some agency might be watching what we’re doing. Watching what you type in your e-mails. Watching how you comment on blogs. Watching which blogs you frequent. Listening to your phone conversations. In fact, they’re probably doing that for everybody. To prevent terrorist attacks, of course. And any of that information could be used against you in a secret court of law
