PLAY THE GAME?

So many things to say about the surveillance state, but I couldn’t put it better than Scahill and Greenwald, so I’ll leave it to them. I can’t recommend the vid above highly enough if you have any interest in hearing from two true American patriots and are not frightened of the word socialism.

But enough about them, let’s talk about me.

Ambassador Roos or his underlings haven’t seen fit to reply to my question I asked him last week about whether the country he represents is recording all my digital communications with the world. But perhaps he didn’t see any need to answer because almost certainly the US government (and Blighty, let’s not forget) are spying on me. I know this because they are almost certainly spying on you too. Everyone, in fact. They’ve got the whole digital world in their hands. There has been no denial of spying. There has been no denial of the secret government agreements to have backdoor access to every Microsoft, Google and Apple product that we have ever used since 2007.

And while I’m not so conceited to believe the US government gives two figs what I’m up to--I mean, why should they?--I also appreciate that they are going to treat me as they do every other foreigner (and American citizen) as a potential threat/problem/number. In other words, all my email conversations, twitter rants, facebook photos, Skype chats and Google searches for scantily clad women are being kept forever in a vault in some buttfuck desert town where they are glad of the jobs ever since Wal-Mart drove out all the local businesses before closing down.

Yours are too.

Like Snowden, like Greenwald, like Scahill, like any sane person who has thought about the issues at stake for more than a soundbite, this is not the world I want to live in or want my children to live in.

So, what can I do? I don’t really know. But here are some starting points that resonate with me.

I will not play their game.I will speak my mind.I will not be scared.I will stand up for those who are standing up for me.I will not back down.As a first symbolic act, I have disabled my Sitemeter hit counter on this blog. From now on I will not be secretly tracking which mad fuckers are still reading this blog. I can hardly rail against the state for collecting metadata from folk if I am too, can I?
I’m not playing their game anymore.