Last week, it was revealed the National Security Agency, or NSA, has been collecting phone records from millions of U.S. Verizon customers since a secret court order was issued in April.
Verizon has been required to give any information, such as the numbers of the people on a call, the location data and call duration since the court order was issued on April 25.
The move by the U.S. government is a continuation of recent decisions to expand its domestic spying efforts, including wiretapping the Associated Press by the Department of Justice.
While this information is nothing new, that doesn’t make it less important. It speaks to how much Americans’ privacy has dwindled since 9/11 terrorist attacks. After that day, the public became more OK with giving up some of their privacy, like the passing of the USA Patriot Act of 2001. By the passing of the bill, it allowed the government to better protect the public from terrorist attacks.
But as the years have gone by, the government has continued to expand its scope on the American public. And while there haven’t been any major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, the government hasn’t disclosed many times when it did prevent a terrorist attack, leaving the public to wonder if the amount of access given to them has been worthwhile and working.
It’s understandable to believe the government when it says it does this because it wants to protect the public. But when does it change from “it’s trying to protect the public” to “it’s invading the public?”
Edward Snowden, revealed Sunday to be the NSA whistleblower, said the reason he decided to come forward was because he couldn’t in “good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy.” And if more people don’t come forward demanding change, then this might be very possible.
These recent events are very troubling as the government continues to test how far it can go in invading the U.S. public’s privacy. And what might be more troubling is the lack of change being called for to do something about these policies by the public.
The American public has become too comfortable with the amount of access they’ve given the government to their privacy. What they need to do is get motivated about making some change, because if there is none, this incident sets a dangerous precedent that the government can get away with anything.
The government is not going to stop checking the public’s phones, Internet and emails. If this is going to continue, the American people should have more of a say on how much the government can invade their privacy.
Because if there is another event on par with 9/11, there is no telling what the public will concede next.
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