Photo by: Stopcallinmeemo

There’s a commercial for the American Express Business Gold Card in which a man needs to travel to San Francisco for business and tries to buy a ticket with a credit card sporting a picture of kittens. The sales woman asks him if it’s a business trip, the man confirms it and is promptly asked by air port security to “step this way, sir.” Then, another man tries to buy a ticket for a business trip, shows the woman his American Express Gold Business card and gets on his way. Does anyone else find this disturbing?

A man, who has done nothing wrong besides using a credit card with a picture of kittens (I wasn’t aware that was a crime), isn’t allowed to buy a plane ticket because he may be what? A terrorist? Maybe I am going out on a limb here, but why else is he asked to come with the security guards? He must now be under suspicion for something.

I know this commercial is meant to sell the public on getting an American Express card for their business needs, but I think it does something else on a much deeper level. It showcases the amount of apathy most Americans have for the heightened security and privacy violations we have been living under since Congress passed the Patriot Act in 2001.

Photo by: One Pissed Off Liberal

Have we Americans grown so used to living under the government’s microscope there are now commercials about it, making it seem okay? Is this all right:

-”Under the Patriot Act anyone suspected of terrorist affiliations can be arrested and detained without solid evidence to prove their affiliations.”

-”The Patriot Act has taken habeas corpus away from over one hundred people sitting in Guantanimo Bay, Cuba.”

These are only a few of the many infringements on our liberties. Yet most American’s sit back and do nothing. Does tyranny not bother us?

This wasn’t right seven years ago, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and it isn’t right today. Patriot used to mean something good. Now it’s something I’m afraid of. I don’t feel safer knowing what the government can do and get away with. This is not the direction America should be taking. Big Brother shouldn’t be watching. If enough people would stand up and do something about it, maybe we can stop them. But we can’t do it alone. And we can’t do it sitting on the couch eating Cheetoes.

I’m not sure anymore what the bigger problem is in America now, tyranny or apathy?