Reuters reports that troubled Internet giant Yahoo! “complied with a classified US government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI.” According to surveillance experts consulted by Reuters it’s probably “the first case to surface of a US Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency’s request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.”

Disturbing? Yes. Surprising? No. Nor is it paranoid to assume that other web mail providers have done the same without admitting it (yet).

Any excuse for not knowing that the US government spies on Americans all the time, everywhere, for various reasons (and sometimes for no discernible reason at all), disappeared in 2013 when former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed the existence of PRISM and other illegal domestic spy operations.

Most of us are easy surveillance targets even before the state intercepts our emails at the provider level. And as for the people the state takes an individualized interest in? If you’re singled out for special attention, the resources governments have at their disposal to track your every activity are, if finite, nearly inexhaustible as a practical matter:

Ubiquitous public-facing cameras. “Stingray” type fake cell towers. Spyware for hijacking webcams and microphones. There are more ways to keep track of where you are, who you’re with, and what you are doing or saying than you can shake a stick at, unless you want it noted in your permanent record that you shook a stick at 1:40pm on October 7th.

In George Orwell’s classic 1984, still the classic surveillance state dystopia, the regime placed a “telescreen” on the wall of each residence. How many surveillance instruments are in your home or on your body, placed there not by the state but by you yourself? Probably at least one computer and at least one cell phone, each equipped with vulnerable camera and microphone. The cell phone can also be used to track your whereabouts 24/7/365 as long as there’s a battery in it (I don’t know about you, but my new phone’s battery isn’t removable).

You’re far easier to spy on than Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, could possibly have imagined.

What to do about it? History doesn’t run backward; the technologies which make us easy to spy on aren’t going to disappear, nor would we want to live  without them.

The governments which use those tools against us, on the other hand, aren’t quite so indispensable. Living without them would mean some adjustments, of course, but we’d be better off in the long run. Our rulers’ greatest fear is that we’ll notice — and act on — that fact.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/08/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Nagaland, India Eastern Mirror, 10/08/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/08/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Uintah Basin, Utah Standard, 10/08/16
• “Surveillance state 2016: Orwell was an optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kingston, Jamaica Observer, 10/09/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Gulf Breeze, Florida News, 10/13/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an Optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 10/14/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 10/17/16
• “Surveillance State 2016: Orwell was an optimist,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sonoran News [Arizona], 10/18/16

Teachers’ aide Jane Wood Allen “has been relieved from duty and is no longer an employee of Forsyth County Schools,” the Georgia district announced on October 3. “Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in our school district.”

The district’s announcement omits specifics (“[a]s this is a personnel matter, the district will provide not further comment”), leaving the casual observer to assume that she must have tried to force a Muslim or Jewish student to eat pork, or perhaps to segregate student water fountains or district buses by race.

In fact, her offense was posting comments on her personal Facebook timeline — comments that many, myself included, find repulsive. She called First Lady Michelle Obama a “gorilla” and asserted that Muslims “have no business in the USA.”

As a libertarian, I’m generally indisposed to defend either government education (I favor complete separation of school and state) or government employees (I favor complete separation of everything else and state as well, which would leave nothing for them to do!).

But the government shouldn’t be allowed to punish people for what they say. There’s a word for that. That word is “censorship.”

The content of Allen’s personal, non-work Facebook profile was and is, quite simply, none of the school district’s business. Firing her is essentially fining her, in the amount of all future wages and retirement benefits she would otherwise have earned, for the “crime” of having opinions the district’s officials disagreed with, and for expressing those opinions on her own time and using her own resources.

In arguing this point with some who disagree, I’ve been asked if I would want a racist teaching my kids. Well, no, I wouldn’t … but that doesn’t mean I get to demand that the government screen job applicants to make sure those applicants agree with me 100%, right down the line, on any and every issue and fire those who don’t.

The government shouldn’t get to fire someone because they find out that her or she is gay or trans rather than heterosexual and cis-gendered.

The government shouldn’t get to fire someone because they find out he or she is an Episcopalian rather than a Baptist.

The government shouldn’t get to fire someone because they find out he or she belongs to a political party other than the one in power.

And the government shouldn’t get to fire Jane Wood Allen for calling the First Lady a “gorilla.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “School District Declares ‘Gorilla’ War on Employee Speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/06/16
• “School District Declares ‘Gorilla’ War on Employee Speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Winnemucca, Nevada News4Nevada, 10/06/16
• “School District Declares ‘Gorilla’ War on Employee Speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper, 10/07/16
• “‘Gorilla’ war on employee speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 10/10/16
• “School district declares ‘gorilla’ war on employee speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newberry, South Carolina Observer, 10/12/16
• “School District Declares ‘Gorilla’ War on Employee Speech,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/15/16

I won’t be voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in November. I won’t be voting for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, either. I’m not sure who I’ll vote for, but I’m sure it won’t be either of those two. Still, I try to be fair-minded, and in my opinion Trump doesn’t completely deserve the hits he’s taking over two recent stories.

Story #1: According to Newsweek, one of Trump’s companies (Trump Hotels) violated the US government’s embargo on Cuba in 1998, reimbursing nearly $70,000 in expenses to two consultants who visited the island nation on the company’s behalf without permission from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Story #2: According to the New York Times, Trump declared $916 million in losses on his 1995 federal income tax return. Depending on how much he earned in subsequent years, it’s possible that nearly two decades passed before he had to pay income tax again.

If not for one thing, Story #1 would improve my opinion of Trump dramatically. The US embargo on Cuba is an evil law which has helped keep the tyrannical Castro regime in power for half a century. Anyone who violates it is doing a heroic deed, striking a blow for freedom and for the Cuban people.

Unfortunately, Trump is inconsistent on this point. He recently stated an intention to “cancel” the progress US president Barack Obama has made toward opening up relations between the US and Cuba.

Story #2 also has an up side and a down side. I’m all for anyone and everyone avoiding every dime of tax possible, by any means they can find, legal or not. A dollar spent, saved or invested in the private sector is a good thing. A dollar given to the federal government is, at best, a dollar set on fire and flushed down the toilet. More usually, that dollar is used to actively harm the American economy and endanger American freedoms.

Unfortunately, Trump’s tax proposals don’t include repeal of the income tax. They tinker around the edges of the tax system, supposedly resulting in across-the-board cuts, but in a complicated enough way that it’s really hard to tell.

Bottom line: I heartily approve of the two things Trump is alleged to have done. Unfortunately, as a presidential candidate, he resembles Hillary Clinton in one significant respect: They both regard inconvenient laws as applicable only to the little people, not to wealthy and important political figures like themselves.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Two Things That Don’t Really Bother Me About Trump, Two Things That Do,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/04/16
• “Two Things That Don’t Really Bother Me About Trump, Two Things That Do,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/06/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Examiner [New York City], 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Ledger [New York City], 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Forest Hills/Rego Park New York Times, 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Greenpoint, New York Star, 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Brooklyn, New York Downtown Star, 10/18/16