It wasn’t the 9-11
attack that changed America, it was the
way the Bush Administration moved to strip our constitutional freedoms in the name of protecting us from another attack of
that magnitude.

More then that, President
George W. Bush and his top military and security advisors broke every moral and ethical rule, launching a preemptive war against
Iraq, a nation that was no threat to us whatsoever, introducing horrifying torture techniques against people suspected of
having information vital to national security, extending military combat duty beyond the limits of human endurance, flagrantly
allowing industry to continue polluting and raping the environment, allowing our best industrial plants to move overseas in
a quest for cheap labor, cutting taxes for the rich while bankrupting the nation by spending billions in an unnecessary and
unpopular war, and isolating America by turning just about every country in the world against us.

The people in Washington have become so unpopular, even in the eyes of the ever-groveling
national media, that they are showing clear signs of paranoia. Among the more troublesome actions . . . many of them done
by executive order rather than acts of our legislators . . . have been the new surveillance technologies, and blatant tapping
of private telephone, e-mail and other Internet conversations, under the guise of looking for terrorist activity.

Not only has this president
stripped America of its Constitutional freedoms, but he has stacked the courts with judges who tend to support his actions,
and appears to have some kind of magical hold over the legislative branch of our government, thus prohibiting the system of
checks and balances built into our government to prevent just such a thing from occurring. Just how this was accomplished,
and who was responsible for bringing this about, may be up to future historians to determine. It would be my sense that this
was not the work of Mr. Bush, but was a long-ago conceived plan that has been slowly brought to fruition by a yet to be uncovered
body of conspirators bent on altering if not destroying America forever.

The gross paranoia expressed
by this government, which now is in obvious fear of its people, is most recently expressed in the announcement by Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that his department is activating a new domestic satellite surveillance system, designed
by the military to spy on the enemy. Except in this case, the enemy appears to be us, the United States citizenry.

Chertoff assured the
media that the spy satellites overhead will be there to keep an eye on climate changes, tracking hurricanes, creating terrain
maps and other such things of service to the overall good of the masses. But be assured that the sensitive cameras on these
satellites also can watch every move we make. If Google can show clean enough overhead photographs of your house so that the
license plate on your car can be read, imagine what military satellite cameras can read.

Indeed, Chertoff made
no secret about plans by law enforcement agencies to use that sophisticated overhead sensing equipment to track criminals
and stop suspected terrorist activity. But in doing this, are we not trampling the concept of individual privacy and civil
rights?

Running this ominous
new “eye-in-the-sky” network will be yet another department, the National Applications Office, part of the counterterrorism
program operating under the flag of Homeland Security. All of this appears to have been accomplished by executive order from
the president’s office, rather than by legislation. We learn that the administration approved satellite imagery, radar,
electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities in these new satellites.

We won’t fart without
someone in the government knowing about it.

And here is yet another
looming threat to our freedoms to worry about. Back in 2005 our Republican dominated legislators blindly approved the Real
ID Act, which will soon call for the creation of what some say will be a national identification card. It will accomplish
this by imposing draconian restrictions on how states issue driver’s licenses.

To get licenses under
this act, states must conduct expensive background checks and create and share state databases with detailed personal information
for all drivers. The act also requires that airline passengers and anyone entering a federal building must present a Real
ID or face extensive screening and delays at the door.

It may soon be impossible
to travel, drive a car, or even buy our groceries without showing this form of identification. While billed as a total information
awareness essential for national security, this obvious Orwellian program looks much like the “mark of the beast”
as foretold in the Biblical Book of the Revelation.

If you think Real ID is a nightmarishly bad idea you are not alone.
It is being opposed by voters and interest groups all over the nation. Unfortunately, the sleeping media has rarely mentioned
it, and this threat has gone almost unnoticed by the masses.