by
Roger L Simon
Back in the ’80s when, on a couple
of occasions, I visited the Soviet Union, I always wondered what was it really
like to live in that godforsaken place. But it didn’t much matter. For all the
creepy spying that was going on, I realized I’d be out of there in a week or
two.
Now I know what it was like. It’s
come home.
I live in fear.
I don’t want to admit it, but it’s
true. Every phone call I make, every email I send, every text I message, every
article I write including this one, I imagine being bugged or recorded.
1984 is here and it’s not pretty.
It infects everything we do.
For example, I want to criticize the
IRS with every breath I take, but in the back of my head I worry — what if they
come after me? What if I’m audited and have to spend the next few years and
untold dollars on accountants and attorneys? Is this fair to my family? Is this
how I want to spend my life?
Just today I was going to follow up
on some information about the wretched prevarications surrounding Benghazi and
hesitated. Should I email the source? Telephone? Send a letter? Snail mail
would take too long.
What about buying one of those
throwaway phones at Radio Shack? But then I would be compromising the
recipients of my calls. I would be implicating them.
A few weeks ago CBS
reporter Sharyl Attkisson phoned me to ask about my Benghazi contacts. I
assumed the call was being recorded. Now I read that her computer is bugged. It
turns on and off by itself in the middle of the night.
Mine doesn’t. At least I don’t think
it does. I tend to be asleep at three a.m.
Still, I live in fear. And I don’t
think I’m the only one. I think a lot of people do now, in various degrees.
They want to think they don’t, but they do.
It’s not a terrified fear. I don’t
cower under my desk. It’s a nagging fear, a trepidation. Something that never
goes away.
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