September 11, 2001 is a date that completely changed the trajectory of the United States of America. It is a date in which many innocent people lost theirs lifes but it is also a date which began the violations of constitutional rights guaranteed to American citizens since the genesis of this country. With the goal of defeating terrorists, our government has embarked upon a mission to coerce terrorists at any cost even if it means violating our rights. The first example of this was the Patriot Act which allowed the government to tap into our phone conversations. At the time that the act was passed, the American public was justifiably in fear of another attack on our soil so the Act faced little opposition. But what many people failed to realize is that the right of privacy against the government is guaranteed to us under the fourth amendment. As the internet expanded and grew to the force that it is today, the government than sought to expand the privacy violations of the Patriot Act to the internet. Acts such as SOPA and CISPA were aimed at censoring and monitoring the internet but fortunately such measures faced massive opposition. Agencies such as the NSA then teamed up with corporations to extract information from people suspected to have terrorist ties. The NSA promised that it will only obtain information of people that were suspected of terrorism but then came along a man by the name of Edward Snowden. Snowden an NSA employee hacked into their documents and found that the NSA had created a surveillance system that followed virtually everybody in the United States, meaning they broke their promise not to intrude on the privacy of people not suspected of terrorism. The price for his actions? Political asylum in Russia and he ever goes to any country allied with the U.S. he is sure to face prison time. In addition, our society has become more militarized as the years passed and the incidents of Ferguson brought that into the spotlight with the revelation that our local police services that are suppose to serve and protect are looking more like oppressors. While I mourn the murders of the people murdered on 9/11 it infuriates me that the result of this incident was an attack by the US government on its own people. This is what the Terrorists wanted and their vision is being realized today as we live in fear and paranoia of Muslims and their actions. Its sad to say but a country that promotes freedom of the individual to the world should start by guaranteeing that freedom to its own citizens.........
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 22:34:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015