“The greatest power of the mass media
is the power to ignore. The worst thing about this power is that you may not
even know it’s being used” – Sam
Smith
It
is 13 years since 9/11. Since then, our political leaders empowered a national
security state, which brought the loss of much of our personal liberties. Few
Americans noticed the dark consequences of these changes to the law of the land.
And there
was little call for debate in
the main stream media regarding the growing power of the security state. What limited
attention there was did not lead to follow-up by the major networks, or by old-school
print media. That is, until Edward Snowden met with Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras and the story was picked up and followed closely by the Guardian and the Washington Post.
The
newspapers revealed the NSA’s involvement in a dragnet collection of the
phone records of millions of Americans, the creation of software “backdoors”
that allow intelligence agencies to access data held by Facebook and Google.
They reported on the cracking of Internet encryption that is essential to
safeguarding the security of Web users.
Because of the
commitment by both news outlets, the question of the legality of the NSA’s
activities is a front-burner issue around the world.
Congratulations
to both newspapers.
Big Brother apparently can’t watch everything:
That rancher in Nevada isn’t the only deadbeat grazer:
Our dark past reappeared in Kansas:
Republicans put their Easter eggs in one basket:
Not all necessary repairs in Capitol building will be made:
The incident in Kansas is especially troubling. The institutions where shooting occurred were for Jews who were and are fully assimilated in American life (not that anyone should be subject to prejudice). So the hatred expressed was even less comprehensible than if the event involved true outsiders. The irony too is that those killed were not Jews at all.
I don’t mean to imply that any hate crime is justifiable. My point is only that this is not even about fear of the unknown or different. it is pure hate.