Two thoughts on the phone records farce

First, how many terrorists do you really think there are hiding under our beds, so to speak, in the U.S.? (Which begs for the follow-up question of who do you define as a terrorist? But that’s a whole different discussion.)

Of course, the CIA or the NSA or whoever wouldn’t ever publicly give such a number because, they would argue, it might compromise national security. (It might also undermine their bloated budgets, but that also is a whole different discussion.)

So, in the absence of any hard data, let’s do some creative speculating, if for no other reason than to spark a little critical thinking here.

There are 300 million people in the United States:

- Ten percent of that would be 30 million
- One percent would be 3 million
- One-tenth of one percent would be 300,000
- And one one-thousandth of one percent would be 30,000

Do you suppose there might actually be as many as 30,000 al-Qaeda people secretly running around our streets? Frankly, that seems like a rather high number to me. Given the terrorist predilection for secrecy and low visibility, I would suspect that the actual number of al-Qaeda operatives that are on U.S. soil is probably a lot closer to 3,000 than 30,000 --- 3,000 is one ten-thousandth of one percent of the U.S. population.

Doesn’t spending billions of dollars a year to comb through the phone records of 300 million people in order to try to keep track of, at worst, one one-thousandth of one percent of that number and more likely closer to one ten thousandth of one percent, seem more than a little overkill? It certainly does to me? Which, of course, raises a whole different question: What else might they be looking for than al-Qaeda activity?

My second thought is this: I resent that the government is presuming that I am guilty of something and that they have the right to look over my shoulder at all times just waiting to catch me at whatever it is I am guilty of. Every grade school and high school civics class and even the poli sci class I had to take in college were universal in their belief that one of the defining elements of being an American is that you are innocent until proven guilty. Somehow Bush and the Republicans seem to have gotten that turned around: I’m guilty of something and need to continuously prove my innocence.

Looking over their people’s shoulders at all times is what despots and tyrants do in their paranoia that someone might be plotting against them. Which then brings me back to my closing question above: What are they really looking for?