Here’s your chance to tell the Government what you think of them spying on you

Normally I write about music in this blog.  But this is a blog — and the fact that you’re reading this post has most likely just been logged into an N.S.A. database, along with lots of other info about what you’ve been doing just now, including where you are, every email you’ve just sent and read, what other websites, photos and blogs you’ve just visited, all the texts and phone calls you’ve made today, and so on and so on . . .  Does this make you a tad uneasy?  It should.  So here’s a chance to do something about it.  Perhaps I’m being optimistic (I’ve been accused of that before)  but I’ll bet Congress and the White House are a little worried about what we all think of their rampant invasion of our privacy.  That’s why they’re asking us what we think — and it’s why they’re trying to deflect our fear of them and point that fear toward technology itself.  Watch this video of former Clinton Chief of Staff, John Podesta as he tries to do just that:

Don’t let them get away with it.  Go here and fill out the survey.  Be sure to put something in their comment field labeled, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your thoughts on this issue?”  Be bold and don’t worry; it won’t increase the government’s surveillance of your actions.  There’s really nothing more they can do that isn’t already being done.  Here’s an excerpt of what I put in:

I found Councelor Podesta’s remarks a clever, but thinly veiled attempt to shift focus from our government’s vast and terrifying overreach to fear of technology in general.  Technology isn’t the problem.  The problem, revealed by Edward Snowden (whom I firmly believe will go down in history as one of America’s greatest modern heroes — on par with Martin Luther King) is that our leaders, including President Obama, have flouted the Constitution they swore to uphold and continue to conduct an insidious invasion of our privacy in the name of security. 

 

This situation seems upside down to me.  We let large companies collect vast amounts of data on us in return for the convenience of making phone calls, searching the Internet, communicating via email, text, etc. What we need is a government who protects our privacy by ensuring those companies keep that data secret and secure and don’t misuse it. Instead, what we’ve got is a government who secretly demands that those companies turn our private data over to them and then forbids those companies from telling us they’ve done so.