Relax, over the weekend President Obama addressed the mass surveillance of U.S citizens that we learned of last week and assured us, “Nobody is listening in on your phone calls.” He should have added, “Not yet.” I won’t retell what very media outlet revealed all week. The government has been harassing Christian and conservative organizations via the IRS, and in the name of fighting terrorism, also plundering the records of major cell phone companies and social media sites. The largest data bank in the history of mankind has compiled information about the everyday actions of Americans with a cell phone or a social media account. Remember, this wasn’t done by Castro in Cuba or Putin in Moscow, but by Obama in Washington. Code named PRISM, this monumental snooping effort is supposed to make us safe, but the anti-Christ overtones can’t be ignored.
British novelist George Orwell wrote a famous book entitled NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, portraying a society where the state constantly tracks the movements and thoughts of individuals. Its slogan was “Big Brother is Watching You.” Though this 1940s best seller was based on the activities of Stalin and Hitler, its warnings of bureaucratic power run amok resonate today. The Obama administration carried on and expanded practices originating during the Bush era to fight terrorism by gaining access to all communications and transactions of millions of Americans. I, for one, am not at all assured that the President declared, “In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother . . . but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance” Obviously, we have no way of knowing what those details are. We weren’t told in advance, and they’re not telling us now; but if the IRS has used the power to use tax exemptions as punishment for Christian beliefs, can we truly trust our government and this Administration to never use this information for nefarious purposes? Big Brother is watching. Obama may be sincere in what he says, but the purpose of the Constitution is to protect our freedom of religion from any intrusion that is intimidating. Our Government has clearly stepped over that line. It’s nineteen eighty-four in two thousand thirteen.
