Have you ever seen those girls who wear little bits of paper over their naughty bits so as to claim that they aren’t posing “nude?”
Well..I haven’t either, but I’ve heard about them.
Ok, ok, I HAVE seen a few. Been around the block a few times and all that. <ahem!>
Anyway…back to the point at hand.
Yesterday Declan McCullagh reported on the attempts by the governnment to get book lists and customer records from Amazon.com. The government was denied, this time.
“The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek
into the reading habits of specific individuals without their prior
knowledge or permission,” [U.S. District Judge Stephen] Crocker wrote in June. Amazon filed the lawsuit to quash the grand jury subpoena.”
Have you stopped laughing yet?
I mean come on. This is the same government that has overturned habeus corpus, instituted secret “black bag” style searches of private homes without a warrant, openly admits to using torture, instituted wholesale data mining of US citizens, has turned every airport in the country into a North Korea Exclusion Zone, has passed laws that allow it to wiretap, stalk, and monitor 24/7 any American, anywhere, anytime and without a warrant.
And that’s not even the half of it.
Government lackies are lot like the afore mentioned young ladies, parading around in their birthday suits before strangers, insisting that the the little bits of paper pasted to their headlights and nether regions are adequate cover. The reality is that they don’t really know or care. To most government sluts, the Constitution is just a tiny little pastie that they hide behind as they whore themselves out to their government masters. Even the honest and decent ones don’t really get all that “liberty stuff.” Like someone who is tone deaf and doesn’t really understand music, they only get that other people find it important, but they don’t really understand why.
If you want to have fun with a government lacky sometime, try to play devil’s advocate with them and get THEM to explain why liberty is important, while you argue the opposing point. They will stammer and stumble and look sheepish. I know, I’ve done it. Honestly they have no idea. To the average government lacky, all that “freedom stuff” is just something a perp says when he’s trying to beat a rap.
But hold on! Now we find out that some BRAVE judge has stood up, like Gandalf in the mines of Moria, and told the evil government Balrog “You shall not pass!” Wow! Thank God for judges huh? I mean, at least SOMEONE in the government is looking out for us serfs right?
Please!
Given what the government has already implemented in the Patriot Act and countless Executive Orders, the government’s demand that Amazon turn over it’s customer list is small beans. Really, it has all the air of a set up. My suspicion is that if it were a real request Amazon would have rolled over like a cheap whore and we would never have known about it (as per the Patriot Act).
What really happend is this: The government has been getting nervous about how unhappy the non-sheep segment of the American population has become over the assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so they decided to let a little water out of the dam. In a move that would be completely out of character in a real investigation, they nosily DEMANDED that Amazon turn over their customer lists and Amazon noisily refused. Then they both noisily went to court where a judge noisily sided with Amazon.
A win-win solution for everyone! The government gets its constitutional pastie, Amazon and the judge get to play the part of noble heros, and the American people go back to watching lobotomy box, content that Truth, Justice and the American Way have once again triumphed. <insert sappy Lee Greenwood song here>
Ken
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