Why Spy? Poem by Tom Higgins

They can't put everyone in prison
So they've got us all on Prism.
If you thought we have democracy
Then why do they want to spy on me?

If we have a free society
Why do the powers that be
Want an increase to their power
By watching us all every waking hour?

Why are they so afraid of me
That they feel that they have to see.
Who I talk to and what we say
Every night and every day?

What kind of threat do we pose?
As all the time the monitoring grows.
Are we all seen as the enemy
Of those who control our 'democracy'?

Who are the people who are behind
The gathering of thoughts from the collective mind?
What do they want them for
And will they keep stealing more?

More and more of what I think
Mighty putrid is the stink.
If I live in a land which is free
Then how come I've had this done to me?

And why has all this information
Been sent on from the gathering station?
Yes those lovely folks at GCHQ
Have passed all our life stories to

Another gang of spooks, their mates
At the NSA in the United States.
Now call me stupid or maybe naive
But I think I am right to believe

That I am a citizen of a country called Britain
And I have never seen anything written.
That says that these foreigners have the right
To spy on me by day and night.

So what is happening to our land?
Is there something underhand
Happening, and our fate
Is to become Yankee, the fifty first state?

Tom Higgins