A plane, a drone, and the NSA

 

 

"Ha! And you thought 'Big Brother' was only something that existed in fiction!"

Quite a buzz around town this week. You know, the mystery plane circling around town for hours. Nobody seems to know where it came from or what it was doing. There is a hunch it belongs to the FBI. So then if that is true, why in the world would the FBI want to fly circles around both twin towns and the MOA at low speeds? Welcome to the new world of intrusive surveillance.

I hate to say it, but get used to it. More and more cameras, more and more ease dropping, more and more drones. And to what purpose? Why surveil our own people? Are we looking for ISIL cells? Drug runners? Tea Party Patriots? What in the world are we doing to ourselves? And who is authorizing this most egregious tear in the fabric of our Constitutional rights?

Funny how the NSA seems to have given everyone the middle finger with their collection of metadata. Heck, most people don't even understand what metadata is. Remember the Bluffdale, Utah facility? Still there. Still collecting. Collecting what you ask? Metadata, whatever that means. I do know this - at that facility there is enough computing and storage capacity to keep track on every movement, every person makes for their entire lives. So metadata really becomes the broad net, catching everything. Would you not love to get into the knickers of that facility to find out what information they are storing on you? On your family? I sure would.

I remember not too many years ago before the War on Terror, before the Patriot Act, when things were quite a bit different. There was a process to be followed before anyone with implied or expressed authority could "read someone's mail" or wiretap their phone. To do so would have resulted in some kind of "show cause" document that would have been presented to a judge. Because this type of intrusion would violate someone's Constitutional rights, the judge was usually very careful in approving any such order. Today, putting the FISA Court aside, I really wonder how much privacy we have lost to our new technologies.

Where does it go from here? I am afraid this is only the beginning. Soon due to the wonders of nanotechnology, drones will be the size of a fly or smaller. They will be able to enter a house undetected and have cameras and microphones to record everything. That information can then be uploaded to Bluffdale or whatever mega storage facility is being used at that time. Information about our lifestyles can be obtained. What we eat, how much we eat, if we smoke, if we drink, if we take sleeping pills, you name it. This information can also be used to determine how much of an ObamaCare premium we will pay.

So anyone who was disturbed this week by the low flying plane circling the cities, I feel you. I don't like it either. The whole thought of this intrusion makes me want to take another shower. But here we are, stuck in our Brave New World, with Big Brother breathing down our necks.