Fringeville Edition #86, June 06 2013

Lately, each day brings evidence that the Federal Government is becoming dangerously powerful. This morning I awoke to learn that the NSA is indiscriminately collecting phone records from millions of Verizon customers.

This is not a story found only in murky media outlets or conservative blogs. It’s front page on the New York Times. It was a big story on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

When the Times and MSNBC start piling on, things are really hitting the fan.

According to the Times story by Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, the NSA order (signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) directs an arm of Verizon to provide to the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

This particular order is aimed at Verizon Business Network Services. I believe it is just the tip of a frightening iceberg. This Administration, supposedly the most transparent ever, has piled lie upon lie and misdirection upon misdirection at every opportunity, and until recently went largely unchallenged. But trust has been broken, the President is ultimately a lame duck, and his Teflon coating is vanishing.

Let me back up a second.

I am not a member of the Tea Party. I am a small government, conservative Republican who believes in God, the sanctity of life, and the inherent right of people to pursue happiness and achieve their dreams in a free America. Yes, I’ve met a number of Tea Party people over the last year or so. I worked with a Congressional candidate last year who was a founder of the Scranton Tea Party. I never once encountered the crazed, militant, dangerous Tea Party folks the mainstream media warned us about.

But I did have my life threatened by a man for supporting Romney. (His exact quote was: “…you’re a Romney man? Get off my porch or I’ll kill you where you stand.”)

Hope and change; ice cream and rainbows; death threats on crumbling porches.

I heard whispers last year that Tea Party groups were being scrutinized by the IRS. At one time I’d have disregarded such a thing as the product of a conspiracy-theory-soaked brain. But these had a ring of truth and they sprang immediately to mind as soon as the IRS targeting scandal broke.

We also have the targeting of certain journalists and the AP by the Justice Department.

And now the NSA is looking indiscriminately at Verizon phone records. (Dear NSA: Can you hear me now? At least you know where to order good wings if you’re pulling my records.)

On this very day in 1944, the beaches of Normandy were soaked red with the blood of those who died to preserve our freedom against an insane dictator and his nightmare government. We are still a free nation, though that freedom is being compromised daily by an out of control Federal Government that indiscriminately monitors the phone calls of anyone they choose …just because they can …and they face no ramifications whatsoever.

I wonder how Walter Griffith feels about this…

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