Why I haven't commented on the NSA spying scandal

So today I have finally gotten some time to comment about a variety of stories that have been circulating around the Blogoshpere over the last few days and weeks. The foremost on my mind has been the spying on americans by the Bush Administration and the fallout from that.

I think that the main reason I have not written anything about this has been the near apoplectic rage I have felt and also the fear. To have so many issues summed up in one overriding abuse of power is almost unprecidented (think Nixon) in our history. I have been seeing the Bush administration as a passing niusance in my life, but this is starting to sound more like the diabolical musings of the tinfoil hat brigade. I have resisted bbeing labeled a crazy person u to now but I have to admit that some of the conspiracy theories are gaining strength.

It now is sounding, from the news and blogs that I read insessantly, like the spying is occuring on a much more massive scale or, perhaps more correctly, using a more all encompassing new technology. This change of information gathering authority is beginning to scare me to death. Taken all alone the NSA deal is still big news but when it is added to the already existing USAPATRIOT act initiatives, the scope of what the government can find out about it's own citizens is amazing. Even Senators havea major problem with this. Senmator Rockefeller wrote a letter by hand to the Vice President that spelled out a number of his own concerns about what he heard about the program and was so certain that he would be disavowed that he wrote a second copy and sealed it up in the secure area of the Senate Intelligence Committee for safe keeping. I don't know which is worse, that he had to write the letter at all, or that he needed to make a secret copy to keep from being politically blackballed.

For those of us who are used to finding the good in all things it is hard to see this as anything less than what the conspiracy theorists have said all along. This is slowly becoming a police state. It started on election day 2000 and was accelerated by 9/11. It is still continuing to accelerate. I have never been really afraid of my government. I am not yet truly afraid, but I am very concerned for all of us. These are the policies and procedures that our constitution was designed to protect us from. God help us all of they can consolidate these new powers.