NSA Surveillance

This week on scandal, a former CIA agent Edward Snowden leaks confidential proof of the government’s public surveillance and everyone is up in arms about the government’s complete disrespect for our privacy. Except, that wasn’t what happened on scandal, because shonda rhimes is much more genius of a writer than that, and because that was real life. This is the world we live in. Humans kill other innocent humans, plot against the government, research how to do it, and big brother watches it all go down. The problem we as spoiled Americans have, however, is that we feel entitled to privacy. We don’t want the government reading through emails or monitoring what we do, even though it (the government) never said it wouldn’t and it supposedly used the information it collects to ward off terror. I learned recently in my Media, Culture, and Society class that part of the fine print to using sites such as Google and Facebook, or signing contracts with phone carriers is that they get to track our activity. Silly geese, how do you think Google got so rich? They collect our personal data and sell it to companies that use this information to advertise to us. Shady capitalism wins again. What does this have to do with the government spying on us, you ask? Well, the way I see it, if Google can spy on us, then why wouldn’t the government? After all, isn’t our safety even better a reason than profit? Basically, most of us are not terrorists, and feel that any spying being done on the average citizen is wrong since again, we are not terrorists. Unfortunately, terrorists come from all backgrounds, shapes, creeds and colors, so everyone fits the terrorist profile. How can the government stop an attack if they don’t look for one? That’s right. They can’t. So do we want them to look for potential threats or not? Of course not! Only Google and cell phone carriers can collect our data. That rhetorical question-answer series brings me to this point- we’re stupid. As a collective, America is stupid. Stupid people need something to be against, and the sheeple that we are jumped on this topic, even though our views completely contradict our actions. By show of hands, even after there was proof that we were being spied on, how many of us stopped using the internet or texting? *silence* I thought so. Because we don’t actually care enough to take action, which means that we don’t care. Let’s also not act like the name ‘National Security Agency’ doesn’t just scream “spies”. The more I try to understand why people care so much, the more all of this seems like a joke. I say, let them watch. I personally have nothing to be ashamed of. For those of you who do, there’s this little saying that goes “what’s done in the dark, must come to light”. In other words, don’t worry about the government; all their dirt gets exposed eventually. Just live your life for everyone to see, since obviously they’re looking anyway.