I'm not a Chomsky fan, but I agree with at least the premise and the beginning of this essay. As usual, he wanders far afield in trying to find the roots of the problem, digging up what probably was a huge moment for him personally -- the academic opposition to Reagan -- but wasn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. (It worries me that people seem to understand why the surveillance state is bad, but immediately after acknowledging it, go back to their usual boogey men and political arguments they had before they figured this out, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Three things here are mention of further note. First, the enemy here is the population of the western democracies themselves. Because terrorists blend and mingle with everybody else, they have no uniform or base and everybody must be suspect. Second, not only is this a huge grab for information, it's also being done in secret. So the folks doing this are determined for the public not to have a discussion about it happening. Third, and most importantly, this discussion is not about the NSA or the US. This is about the role of technology in our lives. If we allow the tech to track us, then it's going to be abused. So it's either no tracking or tracking and making everything public to everybody. I don't see a middle ground.

On the final point, it's a terrible injustice to the tragedy of what's happening to continue to direct outrage at the NSA. The NSA is the good guys. Just imagine what some of the other intelligence agencies are up to. Or what a sufficiently corrupt executive could do working at a place like Google, Amazon, or Facebook.

So kudos to Chomsky for jumping on the badwagon. We're happy to have him. But let's always keep our eyes on the context here. If we're going to fix it, we need to be laser clear on what "it" means.