Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Here's something for gun owners to hate about NSA evesdropping. But hey, hey! Listen up! Don’t feel too smug if you’re a liberal.


They may just be looking for terrorists with bombs, but they can’t help but sweep up nuts with guns. Or just plain gun owners everywhere.

I’m talking about the National Security Agency's electronic vacuum cleaner, the one that reaches deep into the crevices of the Internet and the telephone companies and sweeps up anything lying there, sleeping there, crawling through, or flying around like a crazed bat.

Are they making a list
and checking it twice?

If you paid your dues to a gun club over the Internet, or by check, or by credit or debit card, they’ve got you, Dude.

If you receive notifications via e-mail of when the gun club meets, or when it holds it competitive matches, they’ve got you, Dude. Ditto if you just go to the club’s website and check things out there.

If you’ve been corresponding with other gun owners, they know about it, Dude.

If you went window shopping on the Internet for a really mean mother of an automatic rifle, woo hoo! They see you!

If you phoned your buddy to come out at night with you and go shoot homeless people from the car for sport because deer aren’t in season, they know about it, Dude. And they're coming for you real soon.

Left six, right 12,
left past 12 to 23

Yeah, I’m talking to you, with the gun safe and the six shotguns locked in the closet. They know when you are sleeping. They know when you’re awake. They probably also know exactly where your gun safe is. And what the combination is.

If you correspond with a dude who corresponds with other dudes about guns, they know you correspond with him. And that he corresponds with them.

If you sent someone an e-mail saying, “They may have tanks and missiles, but I’m going to take a few of them out with my AR15 and my 100 round clip if they come for my guns,” they know about it.

And when they come for your guns they’ll have you by the short hairs of your cell phone, your computer, your I-Phone, and for that matter, your pet poodle. (Remember when you bought a GPS tracking device for your dog, so that if he ever got lost or ran away, you could find him? Now they can find him, too.)

If you like to save money by reloading ammo, they know about you, and where you bought the gunpowder, and how much you bought, and what you paid for it. Not to mention that truckload of nitrate-based fertilizer you’re thinking of buying. Yup, they can probably hear you thinking, too.

Your second amendment’s useless
Without my fourth ammendment

See, you gun fanatics were so crazed about defending the Second Amendment against all interpretations except the most absolutist one possible, you forgot to do the same for the Fourth Amendment, which states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized…”

Now, the Fourth was written before people wrote and stored records on computers and tablets instead writing things on “papers.” By the definition of the founders, your computer and tablet and cell phone are “papers” and They have no right to access this stuff not even from cyberspace.

Besides, electronic devices are “effects,” which are also presumably protected. Meanwhile, the government is crawling through your computer, tablet and cell phone like maggots on rotten meat without any “oath of affirmation” that describes the place to be searched and the persons and things to be seized.

When you lose the Fourth, you also lose the Second, dude. Big Brother is watching you. And he doesn’t need to see any gun registrations to find you and your piece and your ammo. He doesn’t even need to send in a drone to shoot pictures through your window. Big Brother analyzes the patterns of your purchases and associations, and he knows.

Wipe that smug smile off
your supercilious puss

P.S. Everybody else needn’t feel particularly smug, either. If you’re playing with yourself while watching porn on the Internet, they know about it. And they know whether you prefer girls, boys, groups, little kids, or nasty ladies wearing vinyl bustiers and snapping rawhide whips.

If you gamble, they’ve got your winnings and losses. If you’re planning to demonstrate with One-Legged Grandmas for Peace, they know preciselty where to meet you with tear gas and high pressure fire hoses. If you’re having an affair, both of you should know that Big Brother really is watching, listening and analyzing for “patterns.”

But the clearest pattern that emerges is the pattern of an eroding Bill of Rights.

2 comments:

Steve M. said...

My guess is that the only change to the surveillance regime will be a requirement that the government take all records of calls or online messages relating to guns -- and only those relating to guns -- and destroy them within 24 hours.

JoyfulA said...

I hope the intended recipients of this message study it and pass it on. It's for their own good.

Me, I have an elderly Enfield without a firing pin that my husband won in a poker game in the last century, which you won't have to pry from my cold dead hands. Just make an offer.