RTFA: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_7175561?ncli…

ince 2001, the Bush administration and America’s leading telecommunications carriers have been blatantly violating the law and the privacy of millions of Americans. Working together, they have engaged in a comprehensive and insidious warrantless dragnet surveillance program that ignores the careful legal safeguards set forth by Congress. Under this program, the carriers intercept and disclose to the government the telephone and Internet communications of millions of their customers, along with detailed records about customers’ communications.
Since January 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been litigating Hepting vs. AT&T, a case arising from AT&T’s participation in the illegal surveillance. The case is brought on behalf of all of AT&T’s customers to stop the ongoing conduct and to hold the company responsible in order to compensate the millions of ordinary Americans who have been affected. This should also serve to discourage the telecom giant from agreeing to such illegal schemes in the future.

But if you’ve done nothing wrong, then what do YOU have to worry about? Well, if you are still worried about people committing crimes AGAINST you, then I don’t suppose you need to be concerned by your personal activities, at all. Instead, it’s the actions of others that might concern you. We express such concerns about the behavior of others as LAW, and we extend legal authority to certain individuals in order that they might “stop” people who break the laws.

Although I’ve done nothing wrong (and therefore shouldn’t be concerned that my phone calls are monitored), I am still concerned by this monitoring activity, because such activity is illegal, and I AM concerned about the illegal actions of others. We can debate whether or not this monitoring SHOULD be illegal, but as it stands, we’re just at the point of being concerned about it.

It’s okay to be concerned that the US government is monitoring its citizens. Before this point, it wasn’t obvious that such eavesdropping took place. Prior to 2001, if you were simply AFRAID that the government might be monitoring you, then unless you had proof, you were merely PARANOID. Now it is no longer a matter of paranoia. Now that the issue has been dragged out into the public for all US citizens to consider, what is the consensus?

We must ask ourselves as a nation:

1. are we confident that we can maintain a free society without private communication?
2. when members of our government violate the law we created, can we successfuly seek justice using existing legal structures? Are we free to petition our government for redress of grievances?
3. without transparency in government, can we maintain a free and democratic society?

It’s a little unpleasant to consider, but this is the situation we have been thrust into.