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On 26 Jun, 2013, at 9:39 am, Martijn Grooten wrote:
Surely telling our government to stop watching us is far more prude?Ideally yes. In practise, even in the best of cases it would take some time for such a thing to get through and then you'd only have to believe them not to do this.
Both true up to a point. I believe that the Pentagon Papers and COINTELPRO revelations in the late '60s/early '70s did lead to effective reform and restraint of the US spooks -- to a certain degree, and for a certain time, but much better than the status quo ante.
And to be honest, I don't think we are likely to achieve this at the moment: it doesn't seem to be high on the political agenda, and if it was, we'd still have to hope it were on that of the US Congress too.
It's terribly complex and tangled in webs of deceit, of course, but I think there's a groundswell growing. I think people around the world have had enough. Also, the players involved, the spooks and their masters, have not only their own agendas but their own self-image (or self-justificatory myths, if you subscribe to my view) to sustain. They need to be able to tell themselves, each other, new recruits and so on the we-serve-the-nation lies with a straight-ish face.
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