Well it’s about damn time. I’m pretty sick about hearing how the government agencies are always spying on us and collecting terabytes of personal data that has absolutely nothing to do with “national security.”
Earlier today a Federal appeals court ruled that the data collection of millions of American phone records isn’t in fact justified by crying “Patriot Act, Patriot Act.”
This is great because it puts pressure on Congress and might eventually lead to reduced surveillance programs that don’t spy on millions of us unnecessarily. Previously the NSA, under the Patriot Act, collected phone records of almost every call made in the U.S… storing them and making the data available for identifying potential terrorist threats. Put another way, they treated us all as though we were potential terrorists by collecting the data. It’s kind of similar to trying to find a needle in a haystack by adding a ton of hay for no reason outside of just having more hay.
The program (allegedly) only collected metadata, like phone numbers, times/dates, and duration type information, but didn’t include the contents or transcripts of the calls.
I’m all about using information to identify and find potential threats to our great nation, but collecting so much data, without having leads and direction is threatening to all our freedom. The government shouldn’t have that much power. If in the wrong hands, it can be used to identify any number of groups of people and leveraged against us. Example, us Americans that believe in the right to bear arms and are already under the government’s scrutiny because we believe in bearing arms and keeping our freedom.
Not to be paranoid or anything, but personal data collection really is a huge issue and Snowden actually did us a favor by reminding us of that and shedding light on the depth of information being gathered ILLEGALLY – as determined by this recent decision.
Thanks for having our backs on this issue Judicial Branch!
Cheers,
RR
