So I waited before freaking out about the latest leaks from the NSA. I wanted to let my feelings settle down and mull over what is actually going on before I reacted emotionally and without reason. But I am pissed. And at the same time, very let down. I talked to some people about it, and the basic reaction that people have is… wait for it… “yea, does it surprise you?” People aren’t outraged, they don’t even really care. People argue that the internet is public, and expecting anything you put out there to be private is just being naive. I’m not really in disagreement of this fact, but that’s from a technological standpoint. I agree that people will hack into the facebooks and googles of the world to try and steal our information. I don’t agree that our government should just have their own dedicated pipes to suck data onto their own personal archive machines to go through when and how they see fit. They have completely sidestepped due process and just help themselves to whatever information they want, whenever they want, and there’s no way for the public to determine if abuses are being made. Sure, I bet there’s people inside the organizations monitoring the requests and at least making sure the most obvious abuses don’t happen… but who knows? Maybe there isn’t even that.
The bottom line – what the intelligence agencies are doing may be technically legal, when all technicalities are weighed, but it isn’t technically constitutional, in the innocent until proven guilty, with liberty and justice for all world that we used to think we lived in. Now we’re all suspects. That’s all anyone is anymore. Not citizens. Just another possible terrorist. So take off your shoes and walk through this x-ray machine, and come join me in the world that we’ve decided to let our government hoist upon us. All in the name of security. But I’ll tell you something. All this technological snooping. Intensive screenings at the airport. Reading people’s email and phone records. It doesn’t do much good. They KNEW about the boston bomber. Investigated him, and decided, nope, he’s cool, we’ll just go back to our cooshy desk job reading everyone’s emails. ‘Course, those did a lot of good in stopping that whole mess, right?
Which brings me to my biggest issue with all of this. Even with intensive screenings and x-ray machines at airports, people have been able to get through the cracks. So, does that mean we need to tighten the cracks, and live in an even more police state? I say no fucking way. Why should I give up all my personal liberties so that you *might* be able to catch the guy that goes to extreme measures to execute his will? What if somebody decided to have a bomb surgically implanted into their martyr’s abdomen? Got it all up in there so that there was no way to detect it? Then what? Full body penetrating x-rays for everyone, instead of just the backscatter kind we’re using now? When do we say enough is enough?
Benjamin Franklin is famously known for saying a lot of things. An important saying to remember went something like ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’
Now, I’m not saying that I don’t want the intelligence world to help protect us from maniacs and extremists around the world. I just want to see some due process involved in the whole affair. And I’m not even upset if due process gets trampled on once in a while in the name of saving somebody’s life. This seems to be a frustrating but apparently unavoidable happening in the world of espionage, and I can accept that. I cannot however accept the United States Government taking blanket liberty to record, archive, and data-mine all of the communications of all its citizenry without a justifiable reason. Due process should allow for the regulated interception of targeted suspects communications.
And on a final note. Fuck you Obama. I voted for you to change this shit. I wanted you to unfuck all the policies that Bush had put into place. Instead you have re-authorized the patriot act, done nothing to fix the wall street debacle, and expanded on domestic spying to unheard of levels, among other things unrelated to this essay. I’m not happy with your administration. Not happy at all.