they work for the government.
You haven’t been able to watch the national morning news programs for the past few weeks without a story about Edward Snowden or the NSA spying on private citizens airing in the first half hour. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Snowden, he leaked and is continuing to leak documents he stole while working for the CIA and as a contractor for the NSA. Snowden, who refers to himself as a whistleblower, is responsible for the largest leak of classified information in history to date.
So far, the majority of what Snowden has released from the documents he took has been regarding the US spying on not only foreign allies and enemies, but on its own private citizens. They’ve monitored phone calls, emails, and texts of millions of Americans. Political pundits have gone all over the airwaves slamming these practices.
“We are the US of A!”
“We shouldn’t be spying on our own!”
But why the enormous outrage? Who really cares if the NSA is spying on you? I don’t. And most of you shouldn’t either. Unless you’re doing something wrong or illegal (I’m looking at you drug dealers and embezzlers), you really have nothing to worry about. If the NSA is going through my emails and texts I feel sorry for them. Can you imagine going through all of that training and security clearance only to spend your days reading countless emails from me to my best friend wondering if this boy or that boy is going to text her back. Vapid phone conversations about who wore it best. Emailing my gays to see which sequin maxi skirt they like best for me for the fall. And yes they will find some sexts. But you know what? An NSA agent finding my sexts is probably going to be the highlight of his day.
Maybe I should, but I honestly don’t care if someone that I’ve never met and never will meet is going through my phone calls, emails, and texts for the good of national security. I’m not that important, and in my humble opinion, most of the private citizens that are so offended by this practice most likely have really normal, boring lives. What are they worried about being uncovered? That they re-gifted something from their office Christmas party to their family? Time to ease up and put our egos in check, people. Nobody really cares. The NSA probably doesn’t even care. They are just doing their job. And PS, knock on wood, there hasn’t been a terrorist attack by an organized terrorist group like Al Qaeda on the homeland since 2001. So clearly someone is doing something right.
