According to John Oliver — NSA Surveillance Does Not Matter to the Americans — Unless They See Our Dick Pics — the Depressing Scope of Public Ignorance

© 2015 Peter Free

 

07 April 2015

 

 

A nation of penis toting louts?

 

Leave it to John Oliver to get to the heart of American culture:

 

 

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Government Surveillance, HBO via YouTube (05 April 2015) (interviews with people on the American street and with Edward Snowden in Moscow)

 

 

Oliver’s presentation implied that . . .

 

Edward Snowden’s personal sacrifice in exposing National Security Agency excesses has been wasted:

 

 

Oliver . . . played Snowden some “man-on-the-street” interviews that must have depressed the 31-year-old who acted, he said, in the name of his ideals.

 

The upshot, as one interviewee put it: “I have no idea who Edward Snowden is.”

 

“You might be able to go home,” Oliver said, “because it seems like no one knows who the f— you are and what the f— you did.”

 

© 2015 Justin William Moyer, John Oliver’s hilarious interview with Edward Snowden, Washington Post (06 April 2015) (extracts)

 

 

After demonstrating that no one knew who Edward Snowden was

 

Mr. Oliver asked his street opinion sample whether it would be okay for the government to capture the public’s “dick pics” — a reference to the pictorial sexting that Anthony Weiner stands representatively for.

 

The unanimous response was that such a thing would be an intolerable assault on Liberty’s privacies:

 

 

Oliver wondered whether, given NSA snooping, everyone should just stop taking illicit photos of their genitalia.

 

“You shouldn’t change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing,” Snowden said.

 

“If we sacrifice our values because we’re afraid, we don’t care very much about those values.”

 

By putting the NSA debate in terms, however ridiculous, people can understand, Oliver revived it. At least for 24 hours or so.

 

© 2015 Justin William Moyer, John Oliver’s hilarious interview with Edward Snowden, Washington Post (06 April 2015)

 

 

The moral? — I doubt we’ll even get to 24 hours of renewed interest in the NSA’s obliteration of the Fourth Amendment

 

It appears that the idea of democratically maintained liberty is flawed.

 

The Founders erroneously presumed that (a) the public appreciates privacy and freedom and (b) is intelligent and forceful enough to force their preservation.

 

Instead, we evidently care only about maintaining the privacy necessary to send each other photographs of our sexual apparatus.

 

I felt compassion for the visibly exhausted Edward Snowden. Idealistic self-sacrifice floats lonely atop a turdish sea.