Aristotle wrote that “the rule of law is better than the rule of any one individual.” But, in a surveillance state, law is arbitrary and capricious. The rules are pretend. The vote is diluted.

What does it mean to be a citizen in a surveillance state? Does it mean this? Or this? Or this? Your guess is as good as mine.

Which brings us to the dark irony of July 18th — the day after a former U.S. President confirmed “America has no functioning democracy” — when Dr. Joseph Bonneau, a member of Google’s Data Protection Team, received the NSA’s award for the Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper of 2012. The title? “The Science Of Guessing.”

The very next day he wrote:

Like many in the community of cryptographers and security engineers, I’m sad that we haven’t better informed the public about the inherent dangers and questionable utility of mass surveillance. And like many American citizens I’m ashamed we’ve let our politicians sneak the country down this path….I don’t condone the NSA’s surveillance….I don’t think a free society is compatible with an organization like the NSA…Our focus must remain on winning the public debate around surveillance and developing privacy-enhancing technology.”

~Joseph Bonneau, Ph.D.

In a follow-up interview, Bonneau echoed NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden:

I’d rather have it abolished than persist in its current form. My feeling based on what I’ve read is that I don’t want to live in a country with an organization like the NSA is right now.

On Wednesday — at the behest of a motivated citizenry working on less than 24 hours notice, and notwithstanding the fact that “the 217 ‘No’ voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 ‘yes’ voters’ – 94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted to defund NSA’s phone collection program.

The following day in Aspen, Governor Chris Christie — the bombastic, diseased, former Federal prosecutor — tacitly extended Dr. Bonneau and other like-minded citizens an invitation to “come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans” of 9-11, who Christie — I’m “guessing” — keeps locked in a time capsule.

Two things require zero guesswork: (a) “the children” with two parents who lost their fathers on 9-11 were never “orphaned” in the usual sense and (b) the alleged “widows” hopefully are either happily remarried or actively dating, as opposed to cowering in a fetal position behind the Marines in conditioned response to twelve years of relentless psychological warfare and political deceit at the hands of Chris Christie and his hapless band of virtual co-conspirators in the Risk Management Industrial Complex.

With individuals like Joseph Bonneau and Edward Snowden giving clinics on “intelligent citizenship” who needs Chris Christie? Haven’t “the widows and the orphans” suffered enough?

Now back to you.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Earlier today a majority of three Jews and six Catholics (three Yale and six Harvard) ruled that from where they sit — i.e. the bench of the Supreme Court — the United States’ 237 year old history of white supremacy is over.

One less thing.

The centerpiece of the high court’s tacit revocation of the 15th Amendment, is the at times rambling — some would say ‘bouyant’ — opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts:

No question dat when Congress past the VRA you niggers were disenfranchised. Today, dat White House be crawlin’ with all matta’ you mothafuckahs and we know dare’s been sum pornicatin’ goin’ on. Mays well call it the Black House. Dat very same nigga’ ‘pointed dat acidic Jew bitch, Kagen, and ‘dat Sonia Da’ Bronks Beaner.

‘Cordin’ly, as chief justice of dis hear ornerable court, I hearbye find and rool and do most definitely declare an end to the racial divides in the various states — lessed of corse y’all have facial hair or ware a funny hat or prey to an alternate dayahdee — in witch case the President, be he Democratik or Christian, will shoot Hellfire so far up yo’ skinny ass y’all wish to Allah yewd staid in y’alls cave playin’ yer pressher cooker. Ol” Spraky — dat’s a muthafuckin’ pressher cooker, right dare!

Nothing herein should be interpreted to mean — like we wrote three weeks ago — dat we won’t be still arbitrarily cheek-swabbin’  cold casin’ cold cockin’ and archivin’ all y’alls DNA for when y’all go off the rails down dat road a piece. As my soshyit Justice Scaila rote den and as I republish hearin by reference: ‘Make no mistake about it, as an entirely predictable consequence of today’s decision your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA data base if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason. Call it a high-tech lynching.’

Now dat’s only if y’all go of the rails and y’all know yo gonna’ ’cause dats how niggas are. Is what day do. Otherwise, y’all welcome to come on in. Water’s fine!

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion:

While it’s true that I may have famously invoked the term ‘high-tech lynching,’ at my confirmation hearing, at this writing there can be no question that our political culture has completely changed. Everywhere I go white people are nice to me and treat me with utmost respect and courtesy. As an example, the President has not killed a single black citizen with a combat drone. Yet, he killed a Muslim American from Colorado as he traveled peacefully through the desert in Yemen. The President’s decision to not first target the black man with a new enforcement tool is empirical evidence as to how far we have progressed as a society. Beyond that, I can not find a caucasian anywhere who has a negative word to say about ol’ Clarence.

President Obama was not immediately available for comment. As reported earlier today, the President and a group of canvassers from his 2012 Ohio campaign staff are is in Russia looking for Edward Snowden. See, Operation Propellarhat.