Luckily, We Can Trust Them With All This Power

N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power - NYTimes.com: "And it wants to find ways to combine all of its technical tools to enhance its surveillance powers. The N.S.A. will seek to integrate its “capabilities to reach previously inaccessible targets in support of exploitation, cyberdefense and cyberoperations,” the paper stated.

The agency also intends to improve its access to encrypted communications used by individuals, businesses and foreign governments, the strategy document said. The N.S.A. has already had some success in defeating encryption, The New York Times has reported, but the document makes it clear that countering “ubiquitous, strong, commercial network encryption” is a top priority. The agency plans to fight back against the rise of encryption through relationships with companies that develop encryption tools and through espionage operations. In other countries, the document said, the N.S.A. must also “counter indigenous cryptographic programs by targeting their industrial bases with all available Sigint and Humint” — human intelligence, meaning spies."

Because there's no possibility they might use it to gain even more power or use it "accidentally on purpose" against us.

The phrase "accidentally on purpose" was one of my Dad's favorites to question people's real motives.  It's come back to me more and more lately with all the crap and lies hitting the fan.

Another of his favorites was the toast: "As good as you are, and as bad as I am, I'm as good as you are as bad as I am."  The more I think about it this is an excellent expression of the case against Leviathan government. Those who think they're better than others can easily fall into narcissistic and manipulative power madness. I've become steadily less sanguine about the prospects of the rapidly deteriorating middle class in the face of these so-called people.

Another joke I grew up with was: "How can you tell when a politician is lying? ... Their lips are moving." And then there was Mark Twain's common sense observation that Congress was the country's only native criminal class.

But the politicians and compliant Praetorian Guard media seem to have done their damnedest to expunge common sense from the culture. The reason being that that's the only way to keep the current status quo of kleptocratic kakistocracy from imploding. (This is a great piece I ran across lately on that topic.)

I guess the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.  Well ... I won't talk about my Mom today as I was remembering her fondly yesterday in spite of her vast failings on the political front...