Mrs. Felicia C. Dziadek

JAMES 8

Drew James

Mrs. Felicia C. Dziadek

English 1302-206

November 30, 2012

Our Right to Privacy

As you all may know we just elected a President Obama again for a second term at the beginning of the month to lead this nation in a direction that has everyone’s best interest in mind. But how sure are you that the people that we put into office have the nation’s best interest in mind and not going off on a power trip by following their own personal agenda filled with their own wants and ambitions for the future of this nation? The only thing that every single American has in common as far as political values go, are our civil liberties. We as citizen should know and understand that our civil rights and our civil liberties are in jeopardy of being lost to a centralized federal government, which is being run as a modern day dictatorship, is trying to micro control every aspect of our daily lives and covering it up by saying that it will help the nation work more fluently. Ever since the constitution was written people have been trying to take away our civil liberties and trying to change our very way of life as free Americans. The worst part about it is that the people that are doing it are in our own government, and they are good at what they do. But the bottom line is that the government has pushed our private lives out into the open and striped us of our privacy and has deprived us of our ability to do what we want. Ever since the cold war the government wants to catch spies on US soil at the expense of the people and after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 the privacy of the nation’s people has taken a back seat to surveillance and intelligence gathering by the government. But enough is enough we the people need to take a stand and take back our privacy and let go of the fear that we are always being watched. It’s no use to live in a free country if you are always being followed from the air, tracked by electronics, or listened to while making a private phone call. It has come to the point that in not too many years from now we could see our great nation go from a thriving capitalistic democracy to a dark socialistic dictatorship. We the people must realize that there is a war going on and that it isn’t overseas it’s in our own backyard and everyone’s liberties are at stake. Joseph Stalin was even quoted saying “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” (Open Your Eyes). This statement coming from one of the United States’ rival enemy is our call to action to protect ourselves from the very powers that we have created to protect and govern us.

If we keep waiting around we will lose every freedom, every right, and every liberty that so many men and women have fought and died for over the years this nation has been alive. These ideas that our federal government is trying to put into place will make this country work in the light of communism than in a democracy, and that strips away the every plans that our founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed in. One of the biggest advantages that we can have to combat this threat is to educate ourselves of what is really going on such as; what exactly our liberties are and how some of the bills and laws that are passed may affect us. If we look at history we can see that many advances come from war, and nearly twelve years ago after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 there was a bill passed called the patriot act. This act is important because it contains a lot of grey areas and fine print that is very powerful. The fine print contains the phrase “in the time of war the government shall” (Jones). This is a powerful statement because it states the government will go to any length to fulfill whatever follows this statement. This act gives the federal government the power to take our civil liberties away during a time of war to protect the security of the nation. So in other words the federal government agencies such as the FBI and the NSA, aren’t looking for terrorist or spies outside the U.S. borders trying to infiltrate society, they are looking at each of us to see whether or not we are the enemy. This bill also established the department of homeland security that does nothing but check for enemies within the United States. Apart from homeland security and the federal government diving into our personal affairs and our private lives there are many things that affect our privacy every day that we come in contact with as soon as we step outside.

How easy do you think it is for someone to tract your every movement throughout the day? Well it is surprisingly easy for someone to keep tabs on where you go and who you are with. The first big on that I have found is red light cameras and security cameras throughout a city. Back when this technology came out it was meant to be used on a closed circuit surveillance system so that no one could follow specific movements to not impede on our fourth amendment. But since the passing of the patriot act and many advances in technology they have all gone on a centralized mainframe that is controlled by local, state, and federal government agencies. The next way that you can be tracked is by your cell phone. And don’t think that you have to have a brand new smart phone of this technology to affect you because the GPS technology is imbedded in every phone that was manufactured since the early 2000’s. Cell phones are also a huge asset to these agencies that are doing this type of surveillance because they are a two for one deal. Not only can the NSA get fixated onto your location in a matter of seconds but that can also read every text message that you send and receive and they can also listen to every call on your phone whether it is outgoing or incoming. The really scary part that the NSA has the power to turn the camera and the microphone in your cell phone on even when the device is turned off, and when they track someone they not only have the ability to track you through GPS capabilities in your phone they have satellites that can zoom in to a person face from one hundred miles up. It’s almost like a digital wiretap the only difference is that it is all legal because the patriot act gives the government agencies the right to do this. The worst part about this technology is that the government doesn’t even need a reason to do this and there is no way for you to know when they are listening or watching.

A downfall of the American people is that we are not completely tuned in to what is really going on in the United States Government. We need to come together and understand that everything that the president and congress puts into action will affect use all. We cannot wait around until the bill is passed to raise our voices to be heard, because by that time it will be too late and the plans will already be put into action. This is where civil duties come into play, public awareness is our biggest asset with dealing with the federal government. When the patriot act was passed in 2001 the people of the united States were all for it because of the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, people were all for it because they thought that it made them more secure because they listened to the political fluff that was being pushed into the media from all of the politicians.

The Patriot Act was a well thought out plan for national security but it was also very rushed in its creation. From the very beginning the Patriot Act was top secret, therefore the document could not be shared with everyone in congress. The only person in congress to see the actual document was the current speaker of the house. With this being said they had to put items in the bill that weren’t deemed top secret so that every congressman and senator could see the bill. When writing the bill there was very good political tactics used because the majority of the bill was filled with political nonsense that made the bill seem insignificant and ensured that it would pass without any hitches. While the top secret portion of the bill set in hiding in section 362 of the Patriot Act which is titled Establishment of Highly Secure Network, and contains very little description of its contents. The contents are stated as follows “Requires FinCEN to establish a highly secure network to facilitate and improve communication between FinCEN and financial institutions to enable financial institutions to file BSA reports electronically and permit FinCEN to provide financial institutions with alerts.” (The Patriot Act). The contents of this description and very misleading and seem to be very insignificant to the rest of the bill, but this was all just part of the plan to get the bill passed while keeping everyone in the dark. Secrecy was the key to success for the government at the time of the bill and still is today. We see that secrecy is still in effect today with national security because that was a conference held in April of 2012 where the subject of national secrecy was addressed. “The scale of government secrecy and surveillance has surpassed all previous boundaries—especially in the national security arena, where the budgets, size and scope of intelligence agencies have ballooned since 9/11.Unprecedented secrecy is largely evading traditional oversight mechanisms, leaving policy makers, the media, and the public in the dark.” (Aftergood). This summary from the conference proves that the federal government, even in these hard economic times, is pouring millions of dollars into not only the area of national security but also to keep the NSA and everyone involved in any aspect of national security out of the public eye.

When Obama took over the presidency in 2008 there was a plethora of promises to the people of the United States that a back seat ride and were forgotten about. Obama during his campaign promised two major things to the people, one being that he would completely revamp the health care system and the second being that he would make changes to the national security dilemma that would make the government step out of our lives. Obama swore up and down that he would restore the trust of the American people in the government. “During that same time period, the number of people whose telephones were the subject of pen register and trap and trace surveillance more than tripled. In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire previous decade.” (Hustun). This quote is just a tiny snippet from the article that Mr. Hustun had published in the summer of 2012 revealing the conclusion of his research of the Obama administrations involvement of warrantless wire taps.

With all of this secrecy that has embodied our government to keep the warrantless wiretaps out of the public scrutiny, we would think that something would be done about it in congress and bills that would put our freedoms at risk would be rejected. No matter where you look the Democratic Party is forcing the government into our everyday lives. Now we hear all the time that our congressman and women are trying to restore faith in our government and give the people back their freedoms, yet when we take a look at the bills that congress has we can see something completely opposite. The biggest slap in the face that we the American people have had to endure is that of Obama care. Yes it will give everyone healthcare, but it comes with a steep price. One being those who work are going to have to pay for those who are unemployed or disabled. Along with this fatal flaw it also takes away our freedom of choice. Say you are trying to pay off debt for one year at the sacrifice of your health insurance, well at the end of that year of having no health insurance you will face a fine that will almost add up to the amount that you would have paid to have health insurance. In this Obama care bill on page 1004 there is a hidden surprise for the American people. “H.R. 3200 section 2521, Pg. 1001, paragraph 1.
The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of post market safety and outcomes data on each device that— ‘‘is or has been used in or on a patient; ‘‘and is— ‘‘a class III device; or ‘‘a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.””(Whittle). This is going to require everyone that is a United States citizen to get a RFID chip implanted in them. Further research on the matter revealed that the NSA is heading the design of the chip that was endorsed by the FDA back in 2004. With this chip implanted, in your arm for say, a doctor may swipe the receiver over your arm and have instant access to all of your medical records within seconds. Now since the NSA is in charge of the design of these chips don’t you think that there will be more technology than just a medical record file in this chip? There will be more than just one receiver to read these chips. There will be one for doctors and one for the law enforcement to keep track of your criminal records too. There is also a theory that the CIA, FBI, and NSA will have their own separate receivers that with a simple wave near the area of the chip will reveal everything from personal email accounts, social security numbers, and sensitive banking documents and records. Now we have to ask to we really want to put ourselves out in the open like this or do we want to demand that our fourth amendment be enforced and push the governments prying eyes out of our personal lives so that we may once again be able to live a peaceful life without the fear of being spied on by the very government that we have elected to speak on our behalf and take into consideration our well-being.

We are in the midst of a digital age war against our privacy. We are being invaded by a power we cannot see and that the government that we put into power has created. There, however, are many ways that we can combat this threat with most of them being diplomatic. But keep this in mind, remember what happened to the Roman Empire when the government got to strong and the senators where out for their own ideas and wealth. If we picture this a thousand years later we are in the same exact position now the only difference is that if the United States falls there will be worldwide panic that will ensue. Although this is a worst case scenario we should always keep in mind that it is a possibility. This should be our driving force that makes us want to make changes in our government now while these agencies are still in the crawling stages and still in planning before they get too big. We must act fast if we are going to see any kind of change whatsoever. And if all else fails, we the people will have to rise up once again and reclaim our freedoms from tyranny just as our fore fathers had done.