After watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (I know, I should pick better sources for citing! Sue me!), I understood that the NSA, the National Security Agency, are in fact keeping track of our phone calls, their destinations, the numbers and extensions that are dialed, and the name of the two-parties on the phone line. I was surprised to find out that the phone companies are just voluntarily handing out this information. Yet, I still suspicion there is more going on, and I think that the Bush administration is forcing the information out of the phone companies. If you were a measly phone company, would you give in to a few thugs threatening to whup you a**? No? Not only does the government have access to gangsta-like thugs, the government has a whole military at its disposal that answers at its beck and call. So, I ask again, if you were just a phone company, would you slip information to a government that threatens to use every force and might they have to make you extract the info? Just as I thought. I don't know if you believe the right to privacy is an important right or not, but to me it is. Without the right to privacy, the unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are useless. Who wants to live in a place where privacy isn't guaranteed or protected? Would you want to drop trou in a bathroom while a million eyes are looking? That is pretty much what the government is doing when listening in on our phone calls. This government is made for the people, by the people, and we retain the final say in whether our privacy should by attack and infiltrated. Help get the word out to the government that we don't want them spying on our phone calls, or other private things for that matter. We don't want "Big Brother" on the other line while conversating to someone in private. So in order to get privacy, we must demand it! One other thing, how many times do you walk out of the room when you want to talk to someone in private?
-Oz, Signing off
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I do not see the justification in all of the government spying. Are they really catching terrorists this way? Well, we don't know since they don't make it public, but it doesn't seem like it. They admit to only tracing about 6 million calls a day, so many get through the lines. And terrorists are intelligent. They're leaving secret code messages on web sites. They could be using the same e-mail account. If they all hvae the password, they can keep writing e-mails, but not sending them; just saving them as drafts, and then the other people go on and read them. They couldn't track those since nothing's actually being sent.
If a terrorist really wants to harm the U.S, I think they'll probably be able to despite the domestic spying. I think it's an infringement on a person's right to privacy. I know it's a time of war, but to me it still is not justified.
They also aren't looking at your phone lines. Or the person who posted this blog. Or mine, or the security guard sitting next to me at work.
Not unless they have reason to suspect any of us of anything.
You think they're going to waste their time checking up on Britney's call to find out if Ashley broke up with Ted? No. You think they're going to waste their time taking action on someone trying to buy a dub? No.
Everyone keeps whining but no one is taking any action themselves.