Gov Data Collecting
Last week, Edward Snowden exposed some of the NSA's data-collecting programs (telephone and PRISM) that he learned of during his career with the NSA, CIA, and Booz Allen Hamilton. I will not express whether is a traitor, whistleblower, or a hero; I don't feel like there is a need to categorize him into something. He exposed just how much data the NSA was being collected; the media has, of course, made this the top story and has caused confusion on what and what isn't be collected by these NSA programs. It is the media that has a significant impact on how the general public views a topic (just think about elections. Would the media have a different perspective of this story a month ago after the Boston Bombings?); why wasn't the NSA key in Windows 1999 as big of a story as it was?
The American public has to have expected to be have been part of the data-collect especially after September 11th, 2011, the Patriot Act, and more recently, the Boston Bombing. I'm absolutely no conveying that the general public should be blind about this topic but there are benefits as a society. With the influence of big media in today's world, the people can be scared and over-react to many stories that may lead to chaos. I'm confident to say that if the government informed the public and the media of every threat that encountered, the nation would be in constant turmoil or the government would be the boy that cried wolf. I would agree that the more we know, the better but there are times where the criminals may take advantage of that.
There is a trust that people give the government in order to live the way we want with a sense of security; it is the responsible of the people within those organizations to respect those who instill that trust in them. There are, and will always be, people who will want to abuse that trust and defile the organizations' reputation, but thankfully there are people who will come out against it.
If the NSA existed as it is today in 1975, would the federal government still be spending the resources and money into finding the body, presumingly dead, of Jimmy Hoffa in 2013? How can such an expensive and an enduring search be justified?