In the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there is a short story called “Silver Blaze.” It is about the disappearance of a racehorse and the murder of the horse’s trainer the night before a race. Sherlock Homes solves the mystery, in part, by recognizing nobody he spoke to heard barking from the watchdog during the night.
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”
The fact that the dog did not bark while the horse was stolen led Homes to the conclusion that the horse thief was a not a stranger to the dog, but someone the dog recognized and thus would not cause him to bark.
We all know that the NSA listens to all our conversations and reads all our digital correspondences. The French government is no different with its own citizens. In fact, since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the French government has expanded their already Orwellian surveillance program, giving it carte blanche. With these double layers of surveillance on the entire population of France and beyond, it is simply impossible for the French national and local security apparatus to have missed any sign of the amassing of manpower, firepower, and explosives necessary to execute the attacks in Paris this past Nov. 13th. That the intelligence agencies spying on us, and especially the citizens of France, did nothing is the dog that did not bark.
Along with demanding that our own governments cease the creation, funding, arming, training and otherwise supporting of terrorists, we must demand that these dragnet spy networks be dismantled immediately.
