Last week, the Guardian, a British newspaper that devotes much of its space to reporting on bikini bodies [see update below], broke the story of the NSA’s surveillance program known as PRISM, in a series of articles that I suspect most people did not read. I certainly agree that this is a big deal, but some of the urgency behind the backlash against this program puzzles me. Is anyone honestly surprised by this? Do people not remember the past eleven years? Where has this level of outrage been up to now?

Of course, I think I know the answer to that last question, and it is similar to the newfound outrage people had over the TSA’s groping practices: now the “war on terror” is affecting us (and by “us” I mean affluent white people, mostly.)

Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers fame, is warning about the “United Stasi of America,” as if that is something that could happen tomorrow if we don’t do………something, I’m not sure what. The story has also given Glenn Greenwald, a writer I used to respect greatly, more opportunities at self-aggrandizement.

The simple fact is that most legislators have unclean hands in all of this, save a few. The revelation of this program’s existence gives us an opportunity to have a national dialogue about how much surveillance we are willing to accept in the name of “national security,” but I have my doubts that we’ll actually get to that discussion amid all the hysteria. Everything the White House has done was arguably authorized by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, so the first thing Congress could do would be to repeal, or at least limit, that law. <crickets>

Here are a few relevant quotes from an update on the surveillance program offered by the Guardian, with my commentary:

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