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Feb. 25 | The List

ONE OF my readers emailed me yesterday to say how much she appreciated my blog. But she said she had to rise above a lot of fear to write to me, because she was concerned that her email might be intercepted and that she would, as result, get profiled.

That was the word she used. I knew exactly what she was taking about, but I'd like to contemplate the idea here a little. Now, we're pretty sure that our electronic correspondence is being read by the government -- everyone (at least if you're on the Net, which is what matters in this case) has read about the NSA (National Security Agency) program of databasing billions of emails. And as a result of getting in the database, we have to deal with this idea of supposedly being profiled.

Profiled as what? As a terrorist like Mohammed Atta, who we're supposed to be concerned about striking again? Or as an enemy of the regime? As an alleged sympathizer? Or as somebody who reads the newspaper? Profiled as one willing to have an opinion and express it to anyone, even in private correspondence? Profiled, in the Land of the Free, that great nation, where ideas are okay and we have what is called a Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our papers and our possessions? Profiled as someone who reads The Onion and laughs at Dick Cheney?

How did we get from looking for terrorists, to somebody being afraid of sending an email to a friend?

In yesterday's edition, I mentioned the 'chilling effect', which is a concept in First Amendment law. First Amendment is free speech, free press, freedom of religion, and the right to protest. Chilling effect is a form of censorship where a government entity basically freezes people out of feeling safe enough to express their views. This is a protected right, and the term is part of Supreme Court case law.

In one form of censorship, a big pile of books might be confiscated. That's the obvious kind. Chilling effect is the sneaky kind: the psychological intimidation to self-censor. Then this slips into our private thoughts and starts to make boundaries about what is and is not an acceptable idea -- what novelist George Orwell called a "thought crime" in his book 1984.

One of the great examples of a chill is when cops show up at protests and openly videotape the participants, even though nobody is doing anything wrong. This freaks a lot of people out because after all, they don't want to be on a police video tape. The effect of the taping is to play on people's deep fears of authority; and of surveillance, loss of privacy, and the expectation of punishment -- and as a result, to rather effectively scare some people enough not to come to the next protest.

What you are exercising as a legal right -- your birth right -- is psychologically converted into a kind of pseudo crime. You can see why the founders of the American republic put these rights into the Constitution: they knew precisely the mentality of police (working on behalf of their higher authorities) that would someday come along and try to intimidate everyone for the sake of state power.

They knew because they had witnessed the kingly, divine right of rulership mentality over and over, and had been personally subjected to it. And they waged a revolution. They did so to form a society were people would be free to live in peace, practice religion and do business; to pursue happiness, as they said it at the time. And they realized that was going to require a clear contract between the people and the government. Most of that contract is contained in the Bill of Rights, which I will post again at the end of this entry.

As James Madison wrote 200 years ago, "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm."

Now, our current unenlightened statesmen and their minions cannot read every email. It seems they can't even find the email in their own office, when Dick Cheney is mentioned.

I don't care how many terabytes of storage they have, I don't care how many GHz they run at, it doesn't matter how brilliant their sleuth programmers are, or how advanced their artificial intelligence programs are. In the best case scenario they are going to wind up with what is commonly called too much information.

But still, in the back of everyone's minds, is notion that the NSA or somebody is keeping a list of everyone who speaks out, who dares to have an opinion and who dares to mutter it. If you're on that mythical list, the naughty person list, sooner or later, you're going to be in big trouble -- so you had better shut up.

That, cousins, is called a social control program. Mind control. Brainwashing. I don't care if there's a list or not, and if there is, there's plenty of people on it I want to meet. The government should turn The List into a personals site or big chatroom so we can all get to know one another.

Take a look at this news article about Morrissey and see if it makes more sense in the context of the chilling effect: how to send a signal to rock stars to shut the hell up, even though you really can't do anything about it. But first, here's your Bill of Rights. The really important ones these days are the First, the Fourth and the Fifth.

http://planetwavesweekly.com/dadatemp/20060220x.html

   and flex those muscles...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45572


Morrissey Quizzed By FBI

Updated: 11:41, Friday February 24, 2006
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13510641,00.html

British pop star Morrissey was quizzed by the FBI and Britain's Special Branch after he called President Bush a "terrorist".

The singer said he was "baffled" to be held and interviewed by the authorities. But he was released when they realised the melancholic warbler was not a threat to the free world.

"The FBI and the Special Branch have investigated me and I've been interviewed and taped and so forth," he said.

"They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England.
"But it didn't take them very long to realise that I'm not."

Morrissey said the incident was proof that American and British societies were not as free as we believe.

"I don't belong to any political groups, I don't really say anything unless I'm asked directly and I don't even demonstrate in public," he said.

"I always assume that so-called authoritarian figures just assume that pop/rock music is slightly insane and an untouchable platform for the working classes to stand up and say something noticeable.

"My view is that neither England or America are democratic societies. You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated."
  
Also reported at http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/32703/