“Wiretapping run amok” @ Salon.com

Posted on June 26, 2012

David Sirota — June 25, 2012: “If there was an ongoing contest in the art of self-contradicting newspeak, a quote from a U.S. military official during the Vietnam War would be the reigning, iconic victor for most of the modern era. In describing the decision to ignore the prospect of civilian casualties and shell a town, that unnamed official famously told Peter Arnett of the Associated Press that “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

Epitomizing the futility, immorality and nihilism of that era-defining war, that line has achieved true aphorism status — employed most often to describe every political endeavor that is, well, futile, immoral and nihilistic.

But now, ever so quietly, the Vietnam quote has suddenly been dethroned by an equally oxymoronic line — one that perfectly summarizes the zeitgeist of the post-9/11 era. As Wired’s Spencer Ackerman reports:

The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers. The reason: it would violate your privacy to say so………………………..

Read more at Salon.com.

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