This is so very sad.

The cynic in me was reluctant in the days after 9-11 to buy much into the whole safer America thing. As a matter of fact I found a lot of the actions that were taken in terms of security a bit off-putting and ludicrous. To think that because of one idiot, millions have to remove their shoes before boarding an airplane just underscores the idiocy of these measures.

You know there was one guy who had explosives smuggled in his underwear but I imagine that the government realized people would have scoffed at having to strip off completely prior to boarding but when you think about the whole logic of having to take your shoes off you have to ask yourself given the reason why the TSA hasn’t taken that additional step.

The latest uproar is regarding the millions of requests the government has made to look into the account details of many online computer users. If there ever was an expectation of online anonymity this should well and truly dispel that notion.

Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google on Monday began publishing details about the number of secret government requests for data they receive, hoping to show limited involvement in controversial surveillance efforts.

The tech industry has pushed for greater transparency on government data requests, seeking to shake off concerns about their involvement in vast, surreptitious surveillance programs revealed last summer by former spy contractor Edward Snowden.

This is all bought to you under the auspices of living in a “safer” and “more secure” world but the sad truth is that individual freedoms are being surrendered up without so much as a peep.

And during the first half of last year, the U.S. government appeared to have a particular hunger for content from Yahoo accounts. The company fielded national security requests for content from 30,000 to 30,999 accounts between January and June of last year. That’s about twice as many as Microsoft, which came in at No. 2.

The question is whether or not there will be some kind of blowback in regard to this? I hardly envision myself as a government conspiracy nut or some kind of anarchist but I can’t help but think about that old saw about turning up the heat of the water in the pot when making a lobster – the shock to the system is less noticeable.

“This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario,” wrote the late William Safire of The New York Times in 2002, in the panicky aftermath of 9/11. “Here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive… will go into what the Defense Department describes as ‘a virtual, centralized grand database.’ ”

And the irony of course is that all of this stems from an administration that billed itself as a polar opposite from the previous administration.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.