US: 'Big Brother' Is Watching You
Published in Juventud Rebelde
(Cuba) on 19 August 2013
by Lázaro Fariñas (link to original)
The United States has sold the world the idea that they are the champion of civil rights and liberties. According to a U.S. government spokesman , the country is capable of teaching every other country how to respect human rights. The country is claiming that it is a functional democracy.
All of his would be magnificent if these claims were true. The truth is that in this country there are three powers that represent the state — and it is true that they are all independent of one another. The president doesn’t call a judge to tell him how a judgment should be applied to a specific case, nor is a legislator ordered to approve a specific law or not. While under the current system, known as the establishment, none of the three powers will visibly interfere with each other. Here, everyone knows how to play the game but no one seeks to change the status quo.
However, during various times in history when a group of citizens rebelled, the three powers have immediately closed ranks and become one. Congress has made the laws, the executive power has signed them and the judicial power has enforced them. You don’t mess with the establishment. It happened during the Civil War, it happened during the Great Depression in the ‘30s and it also happened during the Vietnam War.
Of course, in the U.S., a citizen has room to act freely, but this room is thinning. Repressive forces maintain pressure to keep citizens from stepping out of line.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the three powers became one and started to make the small amount of freedom that we had even smaller. I don’t believe that the famous Patriot Act was approved because the government at that time was a group of extreme-right reactionists. I am sure that something similar would have happened even if the liberals were in power.
That infamous day was traumatic, but never before had the government had to take such drastic measures to avoid a similar event in the future. The repression of civil rights was enormously exaggerated. It is almost as though all of the citizens of the country were being considered possible terrorists.
The examples of individual cases where civil rights infringements took place are numerable. You have to think twice to get on a plane today, and passing through security is a pain. One is obligated to take off his or her shoes, belt, jacket and all of the things that he or she has in pockets. But it doesn’t stop there; you have to pass through a strange type of x-ray machine where they see through your clothes electronically. It is best not to talk about the long lines that form at every one of the control points in the airport or at customs counters. Things said can be interpreted incorrectly, and you may find yourself separated from the line and taken to an interrogation room. In large cities in almost all of the intersections there will be a security camera to watch citizens, the same as those that are in supermarkets, commercial centers, office buildings, etc. Once one leaves his or her house, he or she is watched. In the street, one is a potential delinquent. But what is happening in the interior of these houses? The same; we are always being watched. Telephone calls are monitored, as is the number of times you call a number here or abroad. If they think it necessary, they will look at what you talk about in these calls. The Internet is controlled and all of the social pages that were invented in the last years have created “big brother.” They are watching you.
So if all of this surveillance is going on and if the three powers convert into one when they believe it is necessary, who are these champions of civil rights? What gives the U.S. the right to give lessons to and demand things from other countries? What the U.S. government should do is publicly announce that all governments have the right to defend their systems and that nobody is so superior that they alone have the right to criticize the rest of the world.
All of his would be magnificent if these claims were true. The truth is that in this country there are three powers that represent the state — and it is true that they are all independent of one another. The president doesn’t call a judge to tell him how a judgment should be applied to a specific case, nor is a legislator ordered to approve a specific law or not. While under the current system, known as the establishment, none of the three powers will visibly interfere with each other. Here, everyone knows how to play the game but no one seeks to change the status quo.
However, during various times in history when a group of citizens rebelled, the three powers have immediately closed ranks and become one. Congress has made the laws, the executive power has signed them and the judicial power has enforced them. You don’t mess with the establishment. It happened during the Civil War, it happened during the Great Depression in the ‘30s and it also happened during the Vietnam War.
Of course, in the U.S., a citizen has room to act freely, but this room is thinning. Repressive forces maintain pressure to keep citizens from stepping out of line.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the three powers became one and started to make the small amount of freedom that we had even smaller. I don’t believe that the famous Patriot Act was approved because the government at that time was a group of extreme-right reactionists. I am sure that something similar would have happened even if the liberals were in power.
That infamous day was traumatic, but never before had the government had to take such drastic measures to avoid a similar event in the future. The repression of civil rights was enormously exaggerated. It is almost as though all of the citizens of the country were being considered possible terrorists.
The examples of individual cases where civil rights infringements took place are numerable. You have to think twice to get on a plane today, and passing through security is a pain. One is obligated to take off his or her shoes, belt, jacket and all of the things that he or she has in pockets. But it doesn’t stop there; you have to pass through a strange type of x-ray machine where they see through your clothes electronically. It is best not to talk about the long lines that form at every one of the control points in the airport or at customs counters. Things said can be interpreted incorrectly, and you may find yourself separated from the line and taken to an interrogation room. In large cities in almost all of the intersections there will be a security camera to watch citizens, the same as those that are in supermarkets, commercial centers, office buildings, etc. Once one leaves his or her house, he or she is watched. In the street, one is a potential delinquent. But what is happening in the interior of these houses? The same; we are always being watched. Telephone calls are monitored, as is the number of times you call a number here or abroad. If they think it necessary, they will look at what you talk about in these calls. The Internet is controlled and all of the social pages that were invented in the last years have created “big brother.” They are watching you.
So if all of this surveillance is going on and if the three powers convert into one when they believe it is necessary, who are these champions of civil rights? What gives the U.S. the right to give lessons to and demand things from other countries? What the U.S. government should do is publicly announce that all governments have the right to defend their systems and that nobody is so superior that they alone have the right to criticize the rest of the world.