Patriot Act

                So what can, we the people do to stop the government from snooping through everything about us? How can we control the government that hides everything from us?

                John Oliver on HBO did a video recently on Surveillance, he interview Edward Snowden and I highly suggest watching it.  In the program he talks about the Patriot Act and how it allows the government to perform all this domestic spying on everyday citizens. In June, the act will be up to vote for review.

                As Americans, we seem to complain a lot while doing little to nothing about the problems faced in our government. We sometimes make the effort to vote but that’s about it.  We think C-SPAN is the most boring channel and most of us don’t care about being involved. What Americans don’t realize though is how much influence we have with our government. We think we are so meaningless in our government system when we really can have a major impact. Even just a few people contacting a senator or representative can make a congressperson rethink their decisions. We have the power to control, this is the country were everyone rules but if we just sit back and complain that nothing will be done. If you don’t want to work, and just want to be lazy, then you will keep having the government everyone complains about. If everyone makes an effort to change the government we have, then we the people, have all the power.

                Its quite easy. All you need to do is contact youre state legislators. Simply email or call or anything, say what you don’t like, what you want them to vote for. Get more people to do this and bam, you’ve changed your congressmen’s mind. America has been known for being lazy, we talk but we don’t have the motivation to get things done. Our government has stuck passing absolutely nothing the past few years. Take initative and be involved in our country. As John F. Kennedy always said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”.

Trust

                Trust is needed in a successful relationship; both sides must respect and have trust in one another. They must believe what they tell each other is the true and not hide things from one another unless absolutely necessary. This case is also true for government. Trust must be held between the people and the government to make a country successful.

                Patriotism is something American doesn’t lack. Flags are everywhere, people love their country, and we trust our government most of the time. Vietnam would be the first case where we seem to lose trust in our government.  We look down on our government leaders and call them liars. This led to protest and eventually exiting of the Vietnam war. When we lose trust in our government, we become weaker.

                The NSA and all the privacy being lost in this country for the average citizen have caused me to distrust our government. Sure I knew they were hiding things from us, but I didn’t think it would be giant spy programs that eliminate all privacy. Trust can’t happen if they are hiding major actions that destroy the right of being alone in this country. They can monitor everything, all without us knowing. The knowledge they can obtain without us knowing must be gigantic. Some things like strategic warfare or technology might be best suited to be kept hidden but this is too far.

                I used to always trust my government and the people that have the power. I believed they were looking out for the best interest of our country.  Now I am not so sure. A lot of things lately have popped up to make me question my government. There is lobbying, big businesses and money running politics. There is this fact that our government is keeping secrets from us about how much information they have on each of us. There are leaders that are just looking out for their jobs instead of what they actually believe in. Our government doesn’t seem to be for the people.  Instead it seems to be just about what the government officials want. 

                This distrust makes me doubt everything the government tells us. It makes me think about weather what they are telling us is really true or are we just being kept in the dark about everything? Are we just as oblivious as many other countries in the world? We need to change our policies in this country to try and regain this trust that a lot of us have lost.  Find the patriotism again that sits inside all Americans. We are all just bashing the government and doing nothing about it, we need to change to gain trust.

Surveillance

                We are the most powerful country in the world. We can handle any attack and take on the whole world. We have become the country we are by brute force and knowledge. We have the strongest military in the world but we also have the most information. Information is power.

                Our country has been known for its surveillance. We have the CIA, FBI, and NSA all working to get information about everyone. It’s been a topic of controversy lately though with leaks through Edward Snowden and new information on drones and other surveillance techniques. This blog I’m going to talk about my feelings on this subject to decide if its justified or not to spy.

                Now there are two types of spying, domestic and of course, the 007-like international intelligence. Getting information on our enemies is needed. It gives this country an edge, an edge that has won us a lot of battles and saved a lot of lives. Knowing the enemy through surveillance saves lives and must continue to happen.

                Then there is domestic surveillance that puts our country in a tough spot. The most dangerous threats to our country are attacks that could happen inside our nation. Terrorism, hacking, and other domestic attacks occur in our country all the time.  It’s these attacks that have forced our country to spy on our own people. Now in the past, spying on your own citizens doesn’t turn out to well. We have the Soviets who looked at everyone with paranoid eyes, the Nazis looking for more Jews, and all dictatorships have probably been accused of spying on their own people. We do not like that idea here in the US.  We call these governments who spy on their own people evil and in control of too much power. Yet, this is happening in our own country and people either don’t know it’s going on or don’t care.  We don’t care that our government monitors everything we do, everything we search and everything we see.  But if we want our personal business to be our personal business, we can’t just sit around and do nothing.

                I don’t really want our government knowing everything about me; they don’t have the right to just snoop in everyone’s business, when we have done nothing wrong. Snowden may have released some things that shouldn’t have been released, but he also showed the American people that our government is hiding really big secrets about us and they are hiding them from us.