An open letter to our President, my Senator, and my Congressman

Mr. President and Gentlemen,
This is an open letter of protest, shock, disbelief, and grief. This week we all learned that the  war on terror has now become a war against the civil liberties, privacy, and freedoms of all citizens of our country.
We have now been made aware that hundreds of billions, 252 billion by my calculations, of domestic cell phone call information have been collected and stored to be used in some "future" investigation(s), with a request to a FISA court, by the security apparatus of our country and all this for one conviction, so far, of Nagibullah Zazi, and that is even in dispute.

Of all this metadata collected how much of it has been taken back to a FISA court to request even  further investigation?
Thousands? Tens of thousands, Hundred of thousand? Millions?
Who have these people  been?
OWS protesters? Tea Party members? Religious organization? Environmental groups? Facebook members?  Youtube viewers? Political opponents or rivals?
Who knows?
We surely don't and I have a  feeling you three don't know either.

On one hand this may seem a triumph of the terrorist industrial complex, TIC, but on the other it may be  the worst example of government over reach, the negation of the check and balance system, and gross government inefficiency ever.

This massive terror industrial complex had missed the actions of  U.S Army Major Nidal Hasan, the Time Square bomber, and most recently the Boston Marathon bombers, even after being tipped off  by Russian intelligence on their suspicions of the Tsarnaev brothers.

According to the New York Times of the 22 terror plots, as of April of 2012 14 were FBI sting operations and were not the work of a foreign or domestic terror group.

This work of the FBI and now the NSA have now shamefully demonstrated that our government, once for the people and by the people, is now separate and  above the people.
Now everyone is a suspect with out due process and the protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment and even the Ninth Amendment is called into question by the actions of the President, the Congress, the Courts, and the NSA.

Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on NPR yesterday " A secret government is not a democratic government."

I could not agree with her more.

Mr. President your Administration has now now made it illegal for honest to goodness whistleblowers to report abuses,corruption, waste, or over reach by the government by prosecuting these people under the Espionage Act because so much of what the war on terror is now classified.

That is the not actions of a free democracy, it is totalitarianism sir.

There are numerous examples of whistblowers changing the coarse of history, for the better I might add, and that needs to protected regardless if something is considered "classified."

You claimed to support greater transparency but clearly the actions of your Administration do not and sadly we are becoming hypocrites to ourselves and the world as we publicly appose freedom and a open society but in secret we fail to live up to these virtues.

Mr. President as you said yesterday in San Jose yesterday "I think that's good. that we're having this discussion.but I think it's important for everybody to understand and the American people understand, that there's some trade offs involved. You know, I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs and my team evaluated and we scrubbed them thoroughly and expanded the oversight and increased the safeguards. But my assessment and my team's assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks. And the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration without a name attached and not looking at content, that on net it was worth us doing.Some other folks may have a different assessment of that. But I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100% security and also have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society" 

First we  are not having a discussion about this, as we are all reeling with alarm and concern in just finding out about this, and we the American public have not been presented any choices in this matter.

Secondly no one can promise 100% security and as Americans in a free and open society we  realize and accept this fact as we accept all types of risks every day in our lives.

What we won't accept is unwarranted and illegal intrusions into our private lives by the government of any other entity that we do not give  permission to or that have the legal right to do so.
We also won't accept the fact that no checks and balances are involved in this processes either.

As for Congress and the Senate complacency and towing the status quo is not an  excuse or justification for not acting in the interests of the voters who elected you. It is hypocritical and immoral that one talks about patriotism and freedom publicly but in private their actions represent the complete opposite.

Where do we  go from here?

That is a  very complicated question but we can not accept moving further and further into a police state dominated by the terrorist industrial complex, where suspicion of the innocent is common place and surveillance of all is conducted by an unchecked and secret bureaucracy.

As George Orwall once said " Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

A free democracy can not thrive and prosper engaging in contradiction of it's values and  beliefs.

We must do better and this starts with not letting fear dictate our actions and rationale thoughts. Secrecy is a tool of  fear and we must realize this gentlemen. as FDR once said " Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear."

Fear of our government is not what our Founding Father envisioned it is what inspired them.

Its time for a reality check as we so do need it.

Gentlemen that begins first by having a free and open discussion about these serious manners and it may include re looking and revising the Patriotism Act to balancing security concerns with the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Secondly the American people must be involved and not shut out by the three branches of our government who in "our" best interest have completely left us out of this discussion.

As James Madison once said " Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."

Or as Mark Twain once said. "All large political doctrines are rich in difficult problems -- problems that are quite above the average citizen's reach. And that is not strange, since they are also above the reach of the ablest minds in the country; after all the fuss and all the talk, not one of those doctrines has been conclusively proven to be the right one and the best."

 Or maybe  this is the clearest thought for our  time?
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The choice is our's to make.