What else do they want to know? When will it end? [View all]

[BlueCheese]

The news that the NSA is collecting data about every phone call made through Verizon, and very likely every other carrier, while simultaneously ordering that its surveillance be kept secret, is simply outrageous. I have a hard time believing how angry I am about this. What I've always thought of as my birthright freedoms as an American appear to be gone, at least for now.

In a time of peace, under a Democratic president, the federal government has decided that it should know about every single phone call any American makes, domestic or international. It should know where you are when the call was made, who you talked to, and for how long. Who knows what else the government knows, given that it has imposed silence on those from which it demands the data. Does it know the location data provided by your phone even when you're not making calls? Does it know your web history from your ISPs? Your search history from the big search engines? Who you've emailed? The amounts and locations of your credit card transactions? And even if it doesn't know now, does the government think it has the power to get these things if it so chooses? Given this revelation, can anyone be truly confident the government doesn't already know all these things about you?

In the last several decade, we've learned that the government has decided it has the right to hold American citizens indefinitely without trial, to kill American citizens abroad without first charging them with a crime, and now to collect massive amounts of personal data about every American, the overwhelming majority of whom are not even suspected of being complicit in anything. Did the Stasi know as much about ordinary East Germans? Does the Chinese government know as much about its citizens?

With this news, I feel like we've lost something very real as Americans, and we will not get it back until this never-ending so-called war on terrorism is declared over, the AUMF is repealed, and Patriot Act eliminated. Every day until that happens is a day that we are not truly free.