A View From the Deck: It's NOT 'Big Brother,' it's just Barack

NOTE: The following is OPINION. As such, it is the author's Point of View and his alone.

If you ever had any doubt that the current administration, under le Grand Barack, was eliminating your personal Freedoms, and taking away your Rights, then the recent reports that millions of your phone calls have been recorded, by shadowy agencies like the NSA, should open your eyes to the fact that we have a serious problem with the president overreaching his executive power.

President Obama, speaking publicly for the first time about his administration's mass collection of phone and Internet data, did his best to ‘clear up the misunderstanding’ and said Friday in a press conference that these programs have made a difference in tracking ‘terrorists’ and are not tantamount to ‘Big Brother.’

Uh huh. Yeah, and I got some nice beachfront property in Nevada I’ll sell to ya, real cheap.

As the administration moves to declassify a few, but not all, of the details about those programs in question, Obama assured everyone, with his characteristic, arrogant charm, that his administration is trying to strike the right ‘balance.’

"In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance."

In other words, we’ve given up our Constitutional Rights and Freedom for perceived ‘security’ under this administration, and nobody seems to mind.

Shameful.

Le Grand Barack admitted that the U.S. government is collecting huge amounts of phone records, including phone numbers and the duration of calls, but said this does not include listening to calls or gathering the names of callers.  

"Nobody's listening to the content of people's phone calls," Obama alleged.

So, if they aren’t listening, what fraking good does it do? I’ve spent hours on the phone to family members, and I’m certain that many of you have as well. I kinda doubt that the ‘terrorists’ are regular cellular subscribers. After all, don’t they watch all those cool Hollywood movies where the bad guys use those cheap ‘pay as you go’ phones?

On top of everything else going on behind the scenes in the murky miasma of the Obama administration, a recent Washington Post report detailed another program that scours major Internet companies including Google and Facebook for data.

Responding to this, the Great and Powerful Oz, I mean Obama, stressed that it does not apply to U.S. citizens or people living in America.

Okay, so people with proclivities toward terrorism currently living in the United States aren’t being snooped on. Glad that’s cleared up, aren’t you?

The president said the administration determined "the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers and duration without a name attached and not looking at content, that on net it was worth us doing. You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society."

Like I said, we gave up our Freedoms and Rights for a false sense of security, and no one is certain exactly what the administration plans to do with the information.

Given recent events, I don’t think they’re going to hand it over to the IRS…or…?

We are supposed to have the Right of Privacy from government intrusion into most aspects of our lives. However, le Grand Barack believes that by doing this, he can lead the way in the ‘War against Terror.’

Funny how he only uses that phrase and term when it’s our Rights and Freedoms he’s intruding upon. Are We, the People, the ones he wants to stop?

But, how do we protect ourselves from unwarranted government intrusion? Many would say to just quit putting so much of our personal information out into the ether of the World Wide Web. Yes, that would certainly help, but the bigger issue here is that We, the People of the United States of America, should be Free and be able to have the RIGHT to live our lives without worrying that ‘Big Brother Barack’ is watching our every move.

Until that happens though, I need to get a new shower curtain.

Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum