Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The TIDE Turns

It's kind of like the TV show, "24," which everyone at the White House loves. I hear, in fact, that when "24" comes on at the White house, it's almost like going to the midnight showing of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the local art house. People dress up as their favorite characters and read along from the scripts that the studio sends in "TOP SECRET" government courier bags in advance of the show. And when the "24" marathon comes on ... the entire government grinds to a halt. They all know the lines by heart and act out the scenes on a little side stage set up for just the occasion. And you know who plays Jack Bauer ... I hear he gets into the role, especially those scenes where he needs information from someone.

It's kind of like the TV show, "24," in which the CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) calls up information from its database. The National Counterterrorism Center has a database just like that. Almost half a million names are part of the database. Whether or not the people who carry those monikers are really terrorists or people who someone believes might harm the U.S., whatever that means -- seems to me that in the last 6 years or so, some of the highest ranking elected and appointed U.S. officials have done a lot more harm than good, besides shooting a dear, close friend in the face with a shotgun -- is not really known. Why is that?

My cousin's husband was detained at an airport until he could convince Homeland Security and the FBI that he was not in the Irish Republican Army -- seems to me that an IRA member is a threat to British security, not American security.

The database is known as TIDE, which is the acronym for -- get this -- Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. Just go to the Datamart, the Wal-Mart of the security freaks, and get whatever information it is you need. The Datamart has increased in size the last four years, going from about 100,000 "identities" to nearly a half a million "identities" of not only those nasty foreign terrorists we all despise, but also U.S. citizens, only some of whom we despise. Subversives. Peace protesters. Graffiti artists. This sounds like the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950's all over again, only you don't get a hearing -- you get detained; you get questioned; you are guilty until proven innocent; you are "24'ed."

Oh, the list may not be accurate. It may cause the security freaks to infringe on the liberty of an American citizen, but who really cares.

It makes good blog material.

Posted by Bill at April 8, 2007 11:51 AM