Has The U.S. Government Gone Wild? (A Commentary)

NSA's PRISM, The IRS Scandal: The U.S. Government Gone Wild -- Peter Bella, Washington Times

CHICAGO, June 13, 2013 — The NSA’s domestic surveillance program and the IRS scandal didn’t come from nowhere. They have a geneology.

Roosevelt begat Truman. Truman begat Eisenhower. Eisenhower begat Kennedy. Kennedy begat Johnson. Johnson begat Nixon. Nixon begat Ford. Ford begat Carter. Carter begat Reagan. Reagan begat Bush. Bush begat Clinton. Clinton begat Bush. Bush begat Obama.

There you have the genealogical family that begat domestic spying, domestic intelligence operations, illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping, electronic surveillance on a massive scale, wholesale violations of civil rights. These were the overseers of egregious, constitutionally questionable investigations by government bureaucrats to target “enemies”, political and otherwise, using government agencies to nullify, spy on, and investigate the news media. They fomented secret wars, and in the case of Bush and Obama, used technology for surgical assassination and warfare (drones).

They created massive government regulatory and administrative bureaucracies ― in fact, intelligence agencies ― which demand information from businesses of all sizes to use against them at will ― EPA, OSHA, IRS, and a host of other alphabet agencies, great and small. The used these agencies and the intelligence they gathered to torment, punish and destroy their enemies. Remember, intelligence is nothing more than information. Intelligence gathering is information gathering. What better way to gather intelligence than through pervasive regulatory regimes?

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My Comment: A rather "dark commentary" on the state of the U.S. today. What's my take .... this is not the U.S. that I was brought up to know.