Is there any more entertainment potential for comic opera than the current assaults on cyberwarfare and alleged NSA monitoring intelligence?

While the west screams about hacking by the Chinese and others, the logical question is if we're not doing the same damned thing, why not? And why are those who are protesting our alleged overstepping intelligence gathering also screaming about the idea in general by other countries?

The only problem with this prospective comic opera is that the only people laughing are probably in Beijing and Moscow, just for openers. Self-appointed blabbers like PFC Manning and new Hong Kong resident Snowden have done irreparable damage to essential programs and have endangered perhaps hundreds of lives. 

If they were so bent on exposing stuff they thought to be excessive, why did they not reveal realities of similar activities by those who do not wish us well?

All of this is compounded by the embarrassing partisan squabbling in Washington by people acting if as if they were shocked such things go on, practices for which Congressional budgets have been knowingly and necessarily available for some time?  Then, as if there were some secret about it, the cheap prices paid for information about consumers in numbers well beyond that sought by NSA seem to be of little interest either to probing legislators, lawsuit happy organizations from the right and left and in between.

Not only do these suits make their organizers look foolish and their lawyers thrilled, where have they been while America’s most  freewheeling  marketers have been buying much the same consumer data and more for pennies per person?

Anyone with even basic knowledge of operations like Google and its competitors knows how easy it is to cull the personal records of just about anyone and do it on a subscription basis yet for less than a teenager’s weekly allowance for Twittering and similar intellectual activities.

So comes now the furor the media live for with the revelations of legitimate intelligence activities that may well have prevented some horrific actions by those who have found out how to manipulate the codes and lingo of the internet to organize efforts by long distance.

It’s probably like mixing metaphors to note that the loudest blasts against the NSA actions have come from those of the left protesting as if their freedoms will be abridged in much the same way the NRA sees the government storming gun owner homes to seize weapons of any kind from any and everyone.

But the comparisons do work to show how ridiculous the claims are.  Not one plaintiff from any of those directions have lost their constitutional protections to scream bloody murder and make allegations that only help to increase membership dues for their respective groups.

In the end, we may not see for many days as paid screamers from all directions go about their work, it's likely that more harm has been done.  Not even explored sufficiently are the realistic near term expectations of books by both Snowden and Manning that may already be under development by ghost writers and publishers seeing the clear profit potential.

What does all this say about American leadership, consumers and media? 

From this observation point, it suggests a lot of bridges can be put on the market…whether they exist or not. 

Bernie Madoff no doubt is thirsting for what might have been if only he had had just a little more time.

honick* * *


Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.