Decision Time

Somebody has to tell president Obama that he needs to make up his mind.  Last September, at the Democrat National Convention, Obama told America that the war on terror is over and the USA won.  It is a message that he repeated in his so called drone speech about a month ago.  Indeed, Obama told us all that we could not go on indefinitely on a war footing, so he asked Congress to take away the war resolution that was passed after 9-11.  All those pesky terror attacks around the world (including Boston) are just strange interludes, not an organized terror force, or so Obama told us.

This raises an interesting series of questions.  We know that the NSA is building an enormous data facility in Utah to house all the email, phone calls and the like that it is capturing off of the internet.  Why is this necessary if the war on terror is over?  We know that the PRISM program is sorting through Americans' email and other programs are collecting phone information and credit card data.  Why is this necessary if the war on terror is over?  The Patriot Act authorizes all sorts of intrusions into Americans' private lives in order to fight terror.  Why is this necessary if the war on terror is over?  Why indeed?

Obama cannot have it both ways.  He cannot have a massive surveillance state in which Big Brother exists (supposedly) in order to fight terrorism while, at the same time he announces that the fight against terror is over.