That’s us, now. The House of Representatives has given Big Brother its seal of approval. From the NYT:

 A deeply divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency  from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown over the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month.

The 205-to-217 vote was far closer than expected and came after a brief but impassioned debate over citizens’ right to privacy and the steps the government must take to protect national security. It was a rare instance in which a classified intelligence program was openly discussed on the House floor, and disagreements over the  program led to some unusual coalitions.

Conservative Republicans leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power teamed up with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs. The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it.

According to the Times, opinion polls show that the American public is troubled by what the NSA does regarding collecting Americans’ data, but a slight majority still support the status quo, because terrorists. I bet Edward Snowden feels like a total idiot now, having thrown away his life for nothing.

Still, the politics of all this is pretty interesting:

Ultimately, 94 House Republicans defied their leadership; 111 Democrats — a majority of the Democratic caucus — defied their president.

“This is only the beginning,” Mr. Conyers vowed after the vote. The fight will shift to the Senate, where two longtime Democratic critics of N.S.A. surveillance, Mark Udall of Colorado and Ron Wyden of Oregon, immediately took up the cause.

UPDATE: Just saw this on my Facebook feed:

So about a year ago, Congressman Jeff Fortenberry gives an interview to Rod Dreher in The American Conservative talking about the problems caused by large institutions with no oversight. And today he votes against the Amash Amendment. So that makes 2012 the first and last time I’ll be voting for him.

UPDATE.2: Maybe I’m being too pessimistic:

Only a 12-vote margin to reject a bill to DE-FUND a major NSA program. Amazing coalition of left-wing and right-wing civil libertarians

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 24, 2013