Good news, America.
The National Security Agency has your privacy in mind.
When Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Or., and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Co., asked the NSA to disclose how many Americans have had their communications monitored over the last few years, the intelligence community refused to allow such tyrants to bully them into giving up the sensitive information.
Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, told the senators in a letter that the NSA Inspector General felt “a review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons.”
The NSA was simply looking out for the American public, refusing to violate Americans’ privacy by telling the senators how many Americans have had their privacy violated by the agency.
It makes perfect sense.
Yet, that didn’t stop so-called “civil libertarians” on the Internet from mocking the NSA’s claims, pointing out what they viewed as “hypocrisy” and “doublespeak.”
Obviously, the NSA was just trying to protect the American public and was afraid to say the truth: if they gave us that information, they’d have to kill us.
The underlying issue has to do with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was amended in 2008 to give the government broader powers to spy on communications in which at least one party was outside of the United States. The result was that the NSA could now spy on Americans’ emails, phone calls and text messages without pesky restrictions like warrants as long as one party was believed to be foreign.
However, the act is set to expire this year.
President Obama – like a good freedom-loving American – has urged Congress to extend the act as soon as possible.
But Wyden has concerns over what he calls a “back-door search loophole,” in which the government can mine the multitude of data it has collected under the FISA amendments “to find the phone records or emails of a particular American” without a warrant.
Wyden even went so far as to threaten to force a debate over the legislation on the Senate floor, a move that could draw out the act’s extension indefinitely by way of a filibuster.
Wyden, along with Udall and others who are supporting his endeavors, is clearly doing his best to oppose the NSA, which only has the interests of the American people at heart.
So what if former NSA official William Binney has come out saying that the NSA is collecting American citizens’ data? Who cares if other NSA analysts, such as Russell Tice, have already stated that the agency is monitoring all communications? And why does it matter if Wired’s James Bamford has revealed that the NSA is building the country’s largest spy center in Utah which will reportedly store private emails, Google searches and even travel itineraries?
The NSA needs to be able to monitor American’s communications. They have to be able to listen to Americans talk about trivial things like needing to pick up their underwear because, one day, one of them may talk about needing to pick up their underwear bomb.
The risk is just too great!
What do these abstract concepts like “privacy” and “government transparency” matter when faced with such possibilities?
Wyden, Udall and other “defenders of civil liberties” are out of touch with American values.
The America I know and love doesn’t look to empower the individual or to protect abstract “rights.” The America I grew up with instead looks to empower the government.
It is evident in what has probably been the most consistent value in 21st century American politics: In order for the government to protect your liberties, you must first give them up.
David Scheuermann is a 20-year-old mass communication and computer science junior from Kenner. Follow him on Twitter at @TDR_dscheu.