Nobody Cares...

When I read the latest news stories about the NSA Wire-tapping program, big telco companies (like Verizon, AT&T, etc) handing over phone records, and the fact the government is trying to weed out reporter's confidential sources by forcing compliance to get information about phone calls... it all pisses me off. It's one of the things that really gets my blood boiling because it's really starting to turn towards the same sort of control China has over the communication its citizens recieve.

What really irks me though isn't just that the government is doing this... but the fact that no one REALLY cares. Sure, there are people saying, yeah that sucks. But too often have I heard the excuse that "It's war-time. We have to protect ourselves. We need to stop the terrorists." How short-sighted and simple-minded people are that they feel our very basic privacy rights need to be stripped away.

It has nothing to do with me worrying the government is going to find out something about me. I have nothing to hide. The problem is I do not trust any administration to have that much power. The fact they are using it to root out confidential sources for reporters is a big time problem. One of the biggest ways we keep the government in check is through the media. If people in the government who go to reporters as a confidential source are now at risk to be incriminated... nobody is going to speak out. It's how Watergate was broken... it's how government scandals are brought to light. So giving the government the power to silence or spy on it's own citizens... is a very very bad idea.

I have literally wrote in the last 3 months... 7 letters (all email) to Oregon State Senators... and always get back a canned response. I've written about the Net Neutrality issue, the NSA wire-tapping, gay-marriage amendments, Iran, etc... and always get some stupid canned response. Perhaps I should write an actual letter. In all honesty... I feel the system is full of people who don't care... the politicians don't care as long as their positions are protected (and with 95% incumbent winning rate... they are generally ok). The people don't care because they either don't understand the impact or are just generally too frightened to react intelligently.

Even if it does no good, the least you can do is make your opinion known to your senators by writing. Whether they get the message or not... I can't say. But it's getting to that point where we are so apathetic as a country... we are just destined for a huge downfall.

I thought this article was interesting as well:

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70886-0.html?tw=wn_index_2