Connections

Connections
  Some gasbag on the boob tube the other day was crowing about how innocuous the NSA metadata collection is. “The NSA is not recording the content of every phone call. Only a record of who is making the calls is collected.” I smiled to myself as I mulled over the details that were left out. Every telephone number of every phone call made by everyone is recorded. If someone is suspected by the NSA for any reason to be of  "reasonable suspicion", they are deemed to be a “seed”. The NSA without any judicial oversight then records all the telephone numbers of the people who called and who were called by that “seed” for five years. This is defined in NSA terminology as a “first hop”. That’s tens of thousands of numbers. But the NSA almost never stops there, performing in most cases a “second hop” and sometimes a “third hop”. That's millions of numbers. Let’s add it up. If you are unlucky enough to be considered a “seed” and the NSA performs a first, second and third hop on you, for five years it records anybody who called you or who you called along with all those who called anybody who called you or who you called and finally everyone who called all those who called anybody who called you or who you called.
   As my mind reeled at such tyranny, the memory of a life changing experience came back to me. Several years ago, I landed in Buenos Aires for the first time. I hopped on a city bus tour to familiarize myself with the city. When we arrived at the Plaza de Mayo, our guide pointed to a collection of middle aged women slowly walking around the square. “Ladies and gentlemen.”, she intoned. “Every third Thursday of the month, the Mothers of the Disappeared march silently to protest the murder of their loved ones in the Dirty War. Please show respect for them. Do not approach them. Do not take pictures.” 
   I was so moved by the women I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. They carried placards with photos of men, women and children. What horrors had they gone through? I asked myself. I wandered over to a stall at the edge of the square and noticed the vendor was selling small Argentine flags. I selected one and as  I paid for it, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the guide. “I know these women. I am a part of the organization. Would you like to walk with them?”  We entered the procession. The women nodded but no one said a word. The guide whispered as she glanced from woman to woman. “That woman lost her husband, that women her children, that woman lost all of her family and all of her friends, all of the friends of her family, all of their families, all the friends of her friends and all their families: all she ever knew, all who ever knew them and all who ever knew them.”
Copyright 2013
Richard Talbot Hill