Starting "somewhere"...

I've been following the NSA "PRISM" fall out and an interesting quote turned up. James Clapper, the NID (National Intelligence Director) who in today's world outranks the DCI (Director Central Intelligence), in proximity to the POTUS at least, was being interviewed on NBC and Andrea Mitchell asked a basic question, "Why use such a large vacuum?" She of course refers to the collection of "all material", be it all Verizon numbers and conversations, all yahoo emails, etc, as asserted by Snowden via the UK Guardian. His answer was essentially a throw away line, but it got me thinking.

ANSWER: "Well, you have to start somewhere."

Well, that's kind of the point to the question, isn't it? You're not starting "somewhere", you're starting everywhere. But consider if he had named that somewhere. What if he were to say, you need not worry, we're only collecting data on you if you meet certain criteria - you're Muslim, your male age 18-45, and you've emigrated from one of 15 hostile countries from North Africa to the Near East. "Racist!" would have been the cry; conversations about profiling; the WWII Japanese internment camps conversations begin; here comes the ACLU; enter American-Muslim activist groups like CAIR, etc, etc, etc. This is the world we live in today where 56% of Americans, in a Pew Research poll out today, approve of massive data collection (known as "metadata") by the NSA if the justification is "the war on terror." However, what would those same opinion polls be if we narrowed that collection to only those nations PRODUCING our adversaries in the war on terror? You see? Better to go after "everyone" than be accused of being "hostile" towards one group in particular! This reminds me of the 70 year old Irish grandmother being patted down by TSA. I mean, really? Is Al Qaeda recruiting retired Colleens now? That's the world we live in - better to offend "everyone" than someone. Targeting everyone is just doing your job, targeting someone is "hate." Consider how much more effective these programs would be in preventing terror if rules of politically correct engagement didn't apply. Is that the wink and nod game that 56% of Americans are playing? Are we saying, "Ok, ok you have to go after everybody (in air quotes), but we know who you mean."...?

In the end one thing is for sure. You can't unmake this technology. In fact the best we may be able to do is require that a warrant be attained prior to any domestic law enforcement agency viewing it within the context of a criminal procedure against you. But I highly doubt the collection will cease. In the future it will have have to factor in to your vote for President the way "Do you want his finger on the button?" used to. Opposing politicians and their surrogates will ask, "Do you want HIM to have access to all your info?" Maybe for Fourth Amendment guardians that's fatalistic, but it's probably more realistic than we'd all like to admit.