The following is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.
Part V: Privacy (You really think so?)
Before we start this month’s discussion, El Hyena must confess that he has had some difficulty in deciding this month’s topic. Because El Hyena is not a particularly confrontational, controversial, or incendiary person, he chooses to avoid many of what some people would consider to be “newsworthy” topics. El Hyena typically does not conform his beliefs to what television and/or internet news sites determine to be “interesting”, “newsworthy”, or “important”. So if El Hyena’s readers (assuming there are any) are expecting to read about the Kardashians, the royal baby-to-be, or Whatevergate, they have come to the wrong place.
El Hyena is interested, however, in the recent revelations of government surveillance, as well as what are sure to be continuing reports (leaks) about the extent of same. The first question that occurred to El Hyena when news was recently revealed by Wikileaks concerning the National Security Agency’s (No Such Agency’s) vast program of sucking up everyone’s “metadata” from ALL of their communications was this: Why is anyone surprised?
Students of history and readers of books will tell us that our government has been spying on us for decades, either to discovery and suppress “subversion” (disagreement with government policy and/or the implementation of same), or to protect us from foreign or domestic “threats”. Some would argue that the government’s motive is and has usually been to protect it from us. As always people usually believe what their favorite “news” source tells them to believe.
But when one thinks about it, in today’s age of social media, when people post every excruciating detail of their lives on Facebook or Twitter, do people truly have an expectation of privacy? When all of the major telecommunications companies routinely vacuum up similar information about us and sell it to other companies for “marketing purposes”, why should anyone be surprised that everyone, whether it be the government or private business, knows everything about us? If you drive a GM vehicle, as does El Hyena, doesn’t it bother you that OnStar always knows where you are? (“Before you discontinue OnStar service, do you think your wife might want to know where you really were last Tuesday when you told her you had to drive to Dallas for a business meeting?”)
According to many in the government, we were not supposed to know how much we are being watched and listened to, who we were e-mailing, etc., and now that we do our national security has been damaged and our own safety has been threatened. Oh, OK, sorry, our bad.
Our “National Security” apparatus has grown so big due to the latest “threat” to our safety, that apparently it has become necessary for the government to outsource this function to private businesses. Actually, this has been going on for years due to the trend in “privatization”. Some may wonder, who the heck is this Booz Allen Hamilton anyway, and how “convenient” is it that a former director of the National Security Agency is now a high-ranking executive in this company? How is it that a private corporation is passing out top secret clearances to its employees (not the government’s) like parking lot stickers? But it’s not just Booz Allen Hamilton that’s in the lucrative business of “National Security”; there are hundreds of similar private companies, with hundreds of thousands of private employees in boring looking office building complexes, that make up the Secret Army of Northern Virginia.
Are these “leakers” whistle-blowers (a good thing) or traitors (a bad thing)? Again, El Hyena submits that the label of choice largely depends on one’s preferred “news” source. While some, especially the government, tell us these people have betrayed their country, others would say they have performed a valuable and courageous service to us all. Obviously, the government didn’t want us to know about this surveillance because they figured it would make us mad. Some believe that it’s perfectly acceptable for the government to spy on us, and we shouldn’t worry about it if we have nothing to hide. Others disagree.
Anyway, El Hyena has concluded there’s no point in worrying about it when there’s nothing we can do about it and nothing is going to change.
Don’t you feel safer because Google knows what you eat for breakfast, and the government knows you call your mother between 5 and 6 every Monday evening?
