This really makes me want to launch a new "Government Information Awareness"[1] initiative. The tagline should be "Snoop unto them as they snoop unto us." Seriously, if these assholes are gonna spy on us, we should spy back.
This is probably not a great idea due to the difference in capabilities at work. For instance, they can get big corporations to cooperate and offer them indemnity, while you can't. Even more importantly, their ability to lock you up and smack you around with a pipe wrench when they catch you spying greatly exceeds your ability to do the same to them.
Doesn't matter, somebody still needs to do it. I mean, if you look back at the American Revolution, you'd have been nuts to bet on the revolutionaries, right? At some point it becomes simply a matter of principle and you accept the consequences, hoping it leads to a better day in the future.
I'm not eager to go out as a martyr, but with every passing day I'm closer and closer to saying "fuck it" and accepting that that may happen anyway.
But, then again, I've always been a bit of a radical and a hot-head.
The American leaders had an endgame planned. "Let's spy on them" is not an endgame. Unless it's part of a much more detailed plan, I don't think the comparison holds up. Spying on your own government is more akin to a couple of 18th-century Americans saying, "Hey, I know, let's go shoot a couple of British soldiers." Outside the context of a revolution, it's only good at getting you killed.
The point is, doing it, and the resulting fallout, may be part of what it takes to instigate a revolution. And, to be honest, I'm leaning more and more towards the idea that it's going to take a revolution to fix the problems with the American government... I still hold onto a little bit of faith in the democratic process, but it's fading.
It's hard to say. And I have mixed feelings about saying "I hope so" or "I hope not." On the one hand, I think freedom is it's own end, and that we have sacrificed far too much and given our government way too much power, and that it'll take a revolution to roll things back a bit. But, I sure hate the idea of a bloody armed revolution and all the death and suffering that would entail. sigh I dunno man, I just don't know...
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarenes...