With the NSA (National Security Agency) moving to record, catalog and store all of our electronic records including phone calls and correspondence, one has to wonder as to the reason why and whether it is being used for nefarious purposes.
The NSA are spies; it’s only natural that they spy on Americans. As a citizen concerned about the security of our nation in a world of enemies, I am willing to live with the small inconveniences of being observed unobtrusively from the shadows to secure that liberty. I assume that when we hire spies to covertly secure our safety, in the course of their duties it becomes necessary to randomly observe innocent people.
However recording those observations and to observe us ALL the time, takes that ability to new levels. We no longer are at risk from terrorism; we are at risk of being criminalized ourselves.
What should concern us most is how our government (in particular individuals in government) handles the awesome power and responsibility of unlimited personal information. Previous men were arrested and incarcerated for doing much less, and individuals in government who less power and information used it unwisely.
Take for example J Edgar Hoover, who was known to have surreptitiously bugged and recorded the comings and goings of most of the important individuals in government. He used that power and information to control, blackmail and pervert powerful people in government for his own means—and that power pales in comparison to what the NSA has done.
Power corrupts.
One has to wonder then at the recent scandals and resignations of General Petraues and Hilary Clinton. Was the NSA information used to blackmail them into resignation? Was that how this information used to make them conceal evidence about the Benghazi affair, or gain knowledge of the general’s mistress? Was Chief Justice Roberts blackmailed into changing his decision on Obamacare from the logical nay vote to an oddly justified vote that went against everything he intellectually stood for?
Worse, were wireless and internet carriers complicit in the spying under pressure from the White House? In September of 2007, Microsoft was investigated in the EU for antitrust and marketplace bullying. The case went away with fine, but it is now revealed that was the time period that Microsoft became complicit with the NSA and PRISM. European investigators and the Department of Justice went after Yahoo in March of 2008—again the same time period when they joined PRISM. The same goes for each of the carriers until finally the last of the carriers, Apple, complied in 2012 after massive attacks on the company resulted in Congressional hearings.
Are we to assume that was all coincidental? This government is asking us to, and that the information gather by the NSA is benign and used for preventing terrorism.
We should not. Big government has always been the enemy of liberty and freedom. While one cannot ask the NSA to stop doing what it does best and what it is paid to do, there must be an outside authority to monitor and control this power, or limit it to use outside the United States. This is not government for the people, it is government gone wild.
It will consume us all in the end.
