They Have No Right to Store Our Private Data for Potential "Future Use"!

I still say NO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to storing our data.  Even if "future access" requires a court ordered warrant in order to "legally view and use" this data.  Storing our --private U.S. citizen's-- data (phone conversations, emails, on-line media transactions and postings) is a violation of our constitutional right to privacy that goes way beyond the original intent of the Patriot Act.  The Patriot Act (enacted in the aftermath of 9/11) proved to be sufficient in keeping the U.S. and her citizens within the borders of the United States safe under the Bush Administration.  I fail to see the need or justification for this subsequent intrusive and secretive expansion of data collection for intelligence purposes, in not just scope but depth as well, that has taken place under the Obama Administration.  The government has no absolutely NO RIGHT to store my personal data and quite frankly I don't trust them in doing so --that is to say:  I do not trust in the government's ability to keep my private data safe. 

I am all for keeping Americans safe, but I won't willingly surrender my constitutional right to privacy in order for government to do so.  The latter being said, I am okay with the government providing sufficient grounds for probable cause and then legally obtaining a narrow and specifically targeted court-issued warrant to conduct a "targeted search of private citizen's data".  This was the intent of the original Patriot Act.  The current NSA surveillance program still operates under the original "USA Patriot Act", which was renewed in 2006 and again in 2011 (according to the "Seattle Times" newspaper).  Recent revelations about NSA spying on private citizens, secretly accessing and storing our private data --which they have not denied doing!*--  however, clearly demonstrate that the NSA has overstepped their original mandate, as outlined by the Patriot Act.  Now that the truth about the scope and depth of the current NSA surveillance program is thankfully out in the open:  It is up to us, "We the People", to demand some answers, along with a thorough congressional evaluation of the current expanded NSA surveillance program in order to verify that this program is not operating outside the scope of the "USA Patriot Act".  We need to put accountability in government back onto the table in order to ensure the constitutional rights of "We the People" to privacy are not surrendered and trampled upon moving forward, ever mindful of the fact that once we willingly surrender our constitutional rights we will never truly be able to get them back once again.


*In testimony to Congress yesterday NSA director, Gen. Alexander, when asked if the NSA has the ability "to listen to private citizens' phone calls and to read private citizens' emails" responded with an ambiguous ... "No ... No.  We do not have that authority."  We know the NSA does not have the "authority" to access this data without a court-issued warrant, but the question was does the NSA have the ability to access this data and the general clearly skirted the question with his answer.

And furthermore, does the NSA think that members of Congress and "we the people" are stupid?  If they're not storing our private data (phone conversations, emails, on-line media transactions and postings), then what the heck (feel free to substitute a more feeling expletive!) do they need the new $40 million data storage facility ("Dark Star"), in Salt Lake City UT --capable of storing multiple years worth of the entire internet's traffic in their entirety-- for????????????

Once we willingly give it up: we're never going to get it back!

In today's high tech, digital world there really is no such thing as true 'privacy'.  I've always known and accepted this on some level.  Forgoing a certain level of privacy is just the price we pay for this technology we all seem to be addicted to.  The latter being said, you can't spend all your time worrying about invasions into your personal privacy, right?  You just have to live a good, relatively clean life, and hope that there is just so-oooooooo much information out there that you and yours will remain forever lost in the echoes.

Myself, aside from a lot of pain, I've got nothing to hide.  I would rather some people who hurt me from my past were never able find me again, but I know in my heart that if they truly wanted to they could find me once again.  I guess, for the time being, we should be thankful our own private thoughts (ones inside our head) still remain our very own, right?  After all, the United States is supposed to be one of the greatest nations on the planet and the current U.S. government administration claims that it is ... has been, will remain ... the "most transparent administration in the history of the U.S.", so we U.S. citizens have nothing to worry about?

Or so we thought ... In light of recent revelations regarding "data collecting" of U.S. citizens' private information (i.e., phone records, emails, and other social media messaging and posted digital content) for "future use as needed" by way of a government surveillance program known as PRISM, I'd have to say the table have now turned on an epic scale.  And bonus there a new NSA data storage facility will be coming on-line shortly in Salt Lake City, Utah.  This data storage facility will be called "Dark Star" and it will be capable of storing yottabytes worthof digital data --where one yottabyte contains more than an entire year's worth of internet traffic!  In light of these new developments coming into the light  I'd have to say that "transparent" has come to take on a whole new meaning, with transparent now being turned onto you and me, private citizens of the U.S. A.  When the author of the original "Patriot Act" comes out saying that the U.S. government has overstepped its mandate on a grand scale, in this particular instance, you know the world has truly gone mad.  Maybe I'd better not even mention a recent article I read about government funded studies into the science of mind-reading ... "1984", here we come?

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that we live in a world where terrorism has literally come to our front doorstep. As such, the methods our government uses to combat this virulent terrorism have changed.  I was okay with the original Patriot Act, after careful consideration of the facts pertaining to this law as originally written within the scope of the initial use.  Interesting piece of history:  this idea breathed into life back in 2004, in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft.  The original program started in 2001 after 9/11 ... But this current revelation about the depth and scope of our government's spying on and storing of citizens' private, personal information in the form of phone records, conversations, emails and other on-line social media content and transactions crosses a line.  These actions clearly show our government's ability to dip into the lives of its private citizens without due process of law has really gotten out of control, grossly deviating from the Patriot Act's original mandate!   With this mass storing of our private information "for potential future use" there is no more protection from "unreasonable search and seizure" or any guarantee of "due process of law" because the previous requirements to get a court order before obtaining this type of data have now effectively been eliminated  as the government already has all our data!  And we citizens are just supposed to trust that government or individuals with the security clearance to access our data –perhaps with their own private agendas (e.g., political targeting, black-mail, etc.)-- won't use or abuse our personal data and completely trample on our individual rights to privacy?   

By accepting egregious overreach on the part of our government, without question, we, as Americans, will essentially have effectively given up our right to true any privacy, both now and in the future, in my humble opinion.  Once we surrender this power to the federal government we will we never truly be able to get it back!  This is an important point to make and consider, so I will repeat the latter:  Once we, as citizens, willingly surrender our right to privacy to the federal government, on such a grand scale, we will we never truly be able to get it back!  So now is the time to become informed, think this whole thing through and ACT!  I have to wonder which scares me more:  our government secretly overstepping its original mandate, as dictated by the Patriot Act, or U.S. citizens complacency in responding to this violation of power and privacy?  Is not our right to privacy one of the greatest, hard-won, and globally-speaking relatively unique freedoms we have as citizens of the United States of America?  A freedom that used to make the U.S.A. one of the greatest nations on earth …  And we are now somehow okay with just surrendering this freedom in name of an appearance of enhanced security????!!!!???  Yeah, I don’t think so!  Show me the 'money' (proof) and then maybe we’ll talk.  Keep in mind, this “enhanced security” did absolutely nothing to alert authorities to or to prevent the recent terror attack at the Boston Marathon this past Spring 2013.

Is it just me or are the opportunities for abuse in this blanket PRISM monitoring and subsequent data storage scenario unwieldy and wholly unacceptable?  I mean, if any analyst --even a government contractor, not directly a government employee under direct government oversight-- conceivably has the ability, and not necessarily the legal right or due process directive, to target any individual citizen are we then just supposed to trust that they (or god forbid others using them to gain access to private citizens’ information) will simply choose not do so?  That’s absolutely insane!

Given the facts to date, the important question now becomes:  what will we, as U.S. citizens and elected government officials, do about this egregious violation of our constitutional rights to privacy?  And will this action on our part be decisive and timely (unlike all previous responses to affronts on our civil liberties by this current administration) or will we just wind up letting things s-l-i-d-e, yet again, this time around as well?  Remember, once we let these hard-won constitutional rights go, getting them back once again will be next to impossible, so now is the time to become informed, think this whole thing through and ACT!  The way I see it, timing here is of the essence and letting this one "SLIDE" is simply NOT AN OPTION.  It is time for accountability in U.S. government to be put back onto the table ... We've been on the slippery slope for too long now and the landslide is coming.  The Patriot Act was one thing, PRISM and Dark Star are another matter entirely.  What’s more, given the fact that the latter violations to our privacy did absolutely nothing to stop the recent terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon speaks to the fact that surrendering more of hard-won civil liberties is not the way forward in our efforts to combat terrorists.  You have to draw the line somewhere and I say we draw the line at the Patriot Act, requiring court-issued warrants in order to store and access private citizen’s personal data.

And yes, the fact that this particular contractor to the U.S. government --not even a direct government employee -- had access to the intelligence information he says he did --and therein may lie the key-- does make you scratch your head and wonder why our national security secrets are so widely available and unprotected.  That being said, the lack of security w.r.t. to our national security secrets is another matter entirely:  a matter which sorely needs to be addressed, if true, but addressed in another conversation altogether.   And the fact that our government can't even safeguard information w.r.t. our vital national security secrets does not go a long way toward giving me any further confidence in the government’s ability to safeguard my personal information w.r.t. to phone calls, emails, and other digital transactions.

P.S.  This data-mining revelation kind of paints Microsoft's new "Skydrive: 7GB free cloud-drive storage for everyone", Flickr's photo sharing recent "A FREE terabyte of storage for everyone!", and Google's long running slogan of "With 1GB of free storage who ever needs to delete an email?" ... in a whole new light, doesn't it?  Help populate the database with useful data, you clueless citizens?  Our grandparents' were right:  there truly is no free-lunch, go figure .... And what about possible ramifications for limiting the field of potential candidates to run for political offices with everyone's skeletons now just a click of a few buttons away?  Some scary stuff if you stop for a moment and take a look at the BIG picture.