REFLECTIONS ON
THE EXCESSES OF THE NSA 3/24/2014
This Week
the President had a meeting with a number of electronic media
magnates
including Google and Facebook about excessive surveillance
by the NSA.
It should be noted that it appears that most of these institutions
have for
years been secretly supplying the NSA with information on our personal
communications,
without protest. That is until Edward Snowden, the now
infamous
whistle blower, informed us all about the dragnet information
being culled
by this agency. Now there appears to some interest on the part of
electronic
media outlets to salve their conscience by tepid protest over these
activities.
Why should we care if the NSA tracks
information about us?
Most of us
have done, said , or written something in our past that would
embarrass us
if it were to become public knowledge. Or perhaps we associated
with “the
wrong crowd” for a period of time in our lives. Most people then
change perspectives,
and go on with their lives.
What if
there were an agency that was empowered to collect information on
what
everyone did, said, or wrote, and held it for an indefinite period of time?
Eventually
some of this information, through timely leaks, would serve to destroy
the social, financial, and/or political
aspirations of many individuals. Such is the
nature of
politically and ideologically influenced institutions.
There is now
such an agency which aspires to collect information on all that you
do, say,
or write. It is the National Security
Agency (NSA)
Governmental
excesses like those currently demonstrated by the NSA were
anticipated
by the writers of The Bill Of Rights who, in the 4th Amendment,
penned a
citizens protection against “unreasonable search and seizure”.
The National
Security Agency, and it’s apologists defer that they are only
attempting to protect Americans from the ravages of terrorists
bent on
widespread
mayhem. Why then is there no transparency in their activities? Why
has there no
meaningful oversight of this surveillance? Why must they
collect data
on those suspected of no crimes, data to be cataloged and held in
perpetuity without timed destruction (perhaps
after five years)?
What must be done?
If these
activities of our security agencies are not decisively, and quickly halted
and
reversed, our democratic ideals, which have served is well for more than two
centuries, will wither. Tyranny will quickly follow. Autocratic rule
will inevitably
be foisted upon us. Meaningful representative
government will cease to exist.
We will all
live in constant fear of being observed, discovered, “found out”,
or that
information from our past will come back to haunt or destroy us.
Life will
become an oppressive experience for thoughtful and expressive
individuals.
People with
social sensitivity, academics, politicians, and people in power must
step up and
talk about this threat to our individual liberties. Our sitting President
seems
oblivious to the implications of the dark forces working to unravel this
great
experiment in personal freedom.
Dr John
