My How Things Have Changed. Not. Updated: 6:34 pm

January, 2008, Barack Obama campaigning:

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack," he told a crowd of about 300 Ivy Leaguers--and, by the looks of it, a handful of locals who managed to gain access to what was supposed to be a students-only event.

For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," he said. (He was referring to the lingering legal fallout over reports that the National Security Agency scooped up Americans' phone and Internet activities without court orders, ostensibly to monitor terrorist plots, in the years after the September 11 attacks.)

Forward to June, 2013

The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack.

That would be in reaction to the revelation that the NSA has a court order requiring Verizon to turn over ALL telephone data daily for all customers both foreign and U.S. 

And before the stupids start with the BOB defense - it was wrong then, just as it is wrong now.  But I know the BOBers think that if one person does something wrong that makes it OK for another to do it.

And if the we've won the war on terror, since Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive and Al Qaeda is on the run, why is spying on every American citizen necessary?

Oh, and happy birthday to 1984, first published 64 years ago today.

Update  - There's now a report that NSA is tapping 9 top internet servers for e-mail messages, photos, etc.  Sorta knew this was happening.  Looks like it will be confirmed.  h/t Weasel Zippers.

Can we say "Police State"?  And can we say .... well, that wouldn't be nice.  And possibly not physically possible. But the gun registry people can bugger off.