14 DAY TRIAL // More and more reports regarding the NSA show the real scope of the surveillance practices the NSA engages in, making it obvious that this isn’t about fighting terrorism, it’s just about knowing everything about everyone, for a variety of purposes.
I cannot even count the number of times the NSA officials, the US government, or even the British authorities have said this is all being done to fight off terrorism, with little to no evidence to even prove the efficiency of the program against such plots.
The NSA leaders even admitted that the “over 50” terror plots they claim to have thwarted all over the world aren’t really that many in number, nor were they all actual terror plots, or successfully stopped ahead of time.
That being said, they continue to use the same tiring phrase, adding insult to injury by blaming the media for reporting on what the intelligence community shouldn’t have been doing from the get-go.
Had the NSA simply been monitoring terrorists, as they say, no one would have batted an eyelash. Good job, that’s what you’re supposed to do. But Edward Snowden’s moral alarm wouldn’t have gone off had that been the situation.
After all, an agency with tens of thousands of employees can’t possibly just watch a handful of terrorists, right?
Well, no, it seems, since so far the NSA has been spying on US citizens, foreign citizens, diplomats, embassies, the UN, presidents and companies (I apologize if I’ve missed anything or anyone).
Perhaps the worst thing they’ve done over the past few months, however, is their efforts to reassure US citizens that they haven’t been spied on. This, of course, was false, but in the larger scheme of things, those living in the United States are protected (or not) by the Constitution and its amendments.
“There is no spying on Americans,” Barack Obama said, as if that made it any better. Later on, another official boldly stated that the Fourth Amendment didn’t apply to anyone outside the US, and, basically, the rest of the world should stop complaining.
That’s outrageous and hypocritical of the US to say. Why should we, the majority, shut up and not take a stand against such violation of our privacy.
I do not live in the US, nor do I intend to. I don’t even live in a country that’s been targeted by the US so far, although I have little doubt there are ears listening in around here too.
As a non-US citizen, I am outraged by how this entire scandal has been handled and what they’ve been doing. Although we, the billions of people that are not living in the US, are not protected by the American constitution, it doesn’t mean we have no rights and that we should feel any less offended.
Sure, we may not have much to hide – the most of us, anyway – but that’s beside the point since this shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
Americans or not, everyone should have the same right to privacy.
Such obvious delimitations between the US and the rest of us is upsetting numerous political leaders. Germany, France, Brazil, Mexico and most of Latin America have already been named as targets of the NSA and spoke up. New reports about Spain are on their way, as Glenn Greenwald said, just as the European Union is finally waking up and taking measures, even if they’re merely symbolical at this point, against the US.
Perhaps the thing that makes me sick about this entire deal is the fact that the US and their British partners keep defending everything they’ve been doing and throwing the blame on the media and Edward Snowden.
They went as far as to suggest the publications that have reported on the case should be subjected to investigations, stepping on yet another freedom – that of the press.
Well, someone really should stand trial in this entire scandal, although I do not have the slightest expectation this would actually happen anytime soon. However, those who need to be prosecuted aren’t journalists, but the ones who allowed such surveillance to take roots.