Behemoth Brother Is Scanning Your Mega-Data and Seeing Absolutely No Jihad

Upon learning from the now occluded whistle-blower (hey, maybe he's the hidden twelfth imam) that the American government had made Big Brother look, well, rather puny, I was trying to think of the appropriate phrase to describe it all. I wish I knew what the Latin is for "increased to" is, because I think that what's been happening is the opposite of a reductio ad absurdum, that is, the reduction of something to the point of absurdity. As we now know, the government--Behemoth Brother--has been poking around in pretty much everything, and I suggest that the perfect way to describe casting such a ludicrously (and, frankly, frighteningly) wide net is an increasio ad absurdum. Or however you'd say it in Latin. (Sorry, I took German in high school.)

Anyway, Mark Steyn examines the matter in his latest column. You can read it here. I especially like this bit, which demonstrates that you can examine all the meta-data in the world, but if you're chasing down the wrong enemies, you will end up missing the ones right in front of you and looking, well, absurd:

The other day the Boston Globe ran a story on how the city’s police and other agencies had spent months planning a big training exercise for last weekend involving terrorists planting bombs hidden in backpacks left downtown. Unfortunately, the Marathon bombers preempted them, and turned the coppers’ hypothetical scenario into bloody reality.

What a freaky coincidence, eh? But it’s the differences between the simulation and the actual event that are revealing. In humdrum reality, the Boston bombers were Chechen Muslim brothers with ties to incendiary imams and jihadist groups in Dagestan. In the far more exciting Boston Police fantasy, the bombers were a group of right-wing militiamen called “Free America Citizens,” a name so suspicious (involving as it does the words “free,” “America,” and “citizens”) that it can only have been leaked to them by the IRS. What fun the law-enforcement community in Massachusetts had embroidering their hypothetical scenario: The “Free America Citizens” terrorists even had their own little logo — a skull’s head with an Uncle Sam hat. Ooh, scary! The Boston PD graphics department certainly knocked themselves out on that.

And in another freaky coincidence, it turns out the Tea Party (those "scary" right-wingers) were right about the perils of big government. I'd say the IRS and Obama owe every single one of them (whose personal information I'm sure they have on file) a personal apology.