The "Us-vs-Them" rhetoric directly feeds our pack-animal drive for tribalism, from which nothing good ever emerged.
However, it does make for some amusing rabble-rousing.
Now that the rabble has been roused, so to speak, we need to move the debate onto a more mature phase:
1. We need to work out how to live our lives in a state of total surveillance - when our lives are transparent not only to the NSA but also to innumerable other state & non-state security services.
2. We need to work out how to maintain the balance of power between the individual and the state.
3. We need to work out how to maintain business & personal relationships in an era of total transparency.
4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.
>1. ... > 4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.
5. We need to become familiar with what are the functions of the new Fort Meade agencies, having to be recently created to supplement the NSA. The NARUS moniker goes "See Clearly, Act Quickly". NSA's `Unbounded Awareness' et al, gets repeated discussion day after day, this is brought about by Snowden's leaks. The `Intelligence Made Actionable' side of the scale has not even been `tin-foiled' yet.
It is believable McCain's poking Putin's eye is no idle threat, or even possibly Russia will be coerced into extraditing Snowden back to US by orchestrated `Action'. This new `Parallel Construction', Bruce's `NSA Creep' is all I've seen suggesting this `Act Quickly'. Who are these new unknown silent baddest alpha predators --without peer-- being fashioned to be released onto the unbounded wild, to take action, or manufacture outcomes whatever USG wants?
The "Us-vs-Them" rhetoric directly feeds our pack-animal drive for tribalism, from which nothing good ever emerged.
However, it does make for some amusing rabble-rousing.
Now that the rabble has been roused, so to speak, we need to move the debate onto a more mature phase:
1. We need to work out how to live our lives in a state of total surveillance - when our lives are transparent not only to the NSA but also to innumerable other state & non-state security services.
2. We need to work out how to maintain the balance of power between the individual and the state.
3. We need to work out how to maintain business & personal relationships in an era of total transparency.
4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.