"By My Hand . . .

"By my hand and for the good of the State, the bearer has done what has been done."

There are three supposed scandals running about the dystopic Fantasy Island known as Washington DC right now, and this post is about the most recent one.

(Don't worry; I'll get to the others in due course.)

This latest tempest in a chamber pot is the uproar raised by the Associated Press upon learning that the Department of Justice had gathered records on the AP's phones, ostensibly to find out the news organization's sources to see if they were interfering with an anti-terrorism investigation.

Got that?

Good.

So the AP's breathing forth fire and slaughter, saying that the collection of its phone records was illegal and posed a threat to its effectiveness as a news-gathering organization.

Please.

That's a very pre-9/11 attitude to have, especially when the D of J can simply invoke "national security, bitches" to justify any action they take - just like the NSA, the CIA, the D of D, and any other department of the Executive Branch.

"National Security" can be used to justify anything nowadays:  Torture, extraordinary rendition, massive trawling of emails, phone calls and Twitter accounts, and so on and so on ad infinitum.  This is the natural result of the unreasoning panic and inchoate fear that descended on the Federal Government like a shitmist in the wake of Black Tuesday.

So the next time some egregious act by the government happens, don't be too surprised if the guy or gal hands you a slip of paper with this post's opening statement written on it.

We have only ourselves to blame, really.