Homeland Security~ The Pros and Cons

Good morning gentlemen and junglists.

I have a short diatribe on todays complex apparatus' of what was perfectly coined "Homeland Security" and if you are reading this I rather appreciate it.

Homeland security was originally enacted by former President Bush after 9/11, and it could be argued that it existed pre-9/11 without an official name. There have always been wiretaps. Perhaps the first form of surveillance was simply overhearing conversations or he said she said gossip. I would probably guess that basic surveillance techniques date back to the 1940's, though I would posit that it really came into fruition in the 50's and 60's.

Think of the old bug in the vase trick...

"Please speak directly into the flower vase, sir".

Clearly, however, the use of mass surveillance came about post 9/11 (at least in America). This kind of technology was generally used to monitor dissidents abroad, but "Homeland Security" sought to monitor the actions of not only potential dissidents and terrorists, but (so I have heard) also gangsters and criminals.

The use of surveillance on people within the borders of America really took off in a big way post 9/11~ and one would be wise to ask oneself why this type of maneuver would be necessary...

Whether or not creating an entire bureaucracy designed to monitor for potential terrorists was worth the money (as clearly 98.6 percent of all monitoring is deigned to fairly mundane tasks, such as listening in to pot heads) is a question fully open for debate now that we've assassinated Bin Laden, however one must understand that the majority of the funding for anti-terrorism was in full on manufacture of National Defense (i.e. Clips and Carbines), not in monitoring American Citizens.

However, one should at least admit that you are probably being monitored right now, unless you never curse, spit, or buy drugs. This creates a very real dawn of technological infringement, one which we could easily do away with... but probably will not go away in the near future...

So, let's break it down into pro's and con's.

OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD~

Bin laden, the mastermind behind both the 1993 attacks on the WTC and 9/11 which killed 2,998 people, has now officially been killed by U.S. forces. We have his body, which means that it is unlikely that he was killed by a drone attack, and far more likely to have been killed in combat operations.

Osama Bin Laden is dead, and the U.S. has custody of his body.

He was reportedly killed in pakistan, where he was known to cavort with Al Queda operatives.

This is nothing short than completely astonishing.

So many people, so many soldiers have been waiting for this moment, which completely justifies our intervention in Iraq and afghanistan.

This is a major moment in U.S. history, and I urge all citizens to pray for our troops and pray for the just murder of Bin Laden.

This is late breaking news, which hasn't been broken by the media yet.

At the time of this blog, Obama has not yet come onto television to announce the news, so I write this as late breaking news.

One can only imagine how much this news vindicates every single U.S. soldier lost on foreign soil in the past 10 years.

This is great news not just for NY, not just for the U.S.- but for the entire world and the uprisings in the middle east generally.

One can only hope that this will counter balance some of the bad news coming out of the middle east as of late (i.e. the jailbreak in afghanistan, the murders in syria, etc.), and lend credence to our efforts in the backyards of the world.

All of America should rejoice in this great news, and every little bit of anti-nationalism should be squashed by remembering just how tragic the events of 9/11 truly were, how much effort we put into solving the Bin Laden problem, how much this problem plagued the last administration, and how much we as a people have a stake in this development.

All of this is written before Obama speaks (or spoke) on sunday night, so I hope you'll take this humble coverage of what amounts to dramatic and explosive news for America as a bit of pre-bustle coverage.

Thanks for reading, and god bless America.