The NSA Has Won

Well it has been over two months since Edward Snowden fled the US after leaking classified information into how the National Security Administration is spying on other countries and its own people.  By now, Snowden was surely hoping to have spurred a national conversation into privacy, government power, and our rights.  Instead, we got articles like this, Fugitive Snowden slips out of Moscow airport for secret location.

Edward Snowden is Not the Story

In all the time Edward Snowden has been trying to escape the grasp of the US government, the media should have been spurring a debate about the legality of the NSA's spying programs, PRISM, Boundless Informant, and others.  Instead, we have been left with daily headlines from every major news agency telling us where Edward Snowden is, where he is going, and what he is doing.  They are all playing one massive game of Where is the World is Carmen Sandiego?  Who cares where Snowden is, what country will grant him asylum, or whether Russia will keep him away from US authorities until he can escape?  He is not the subject of this story.  He is a minor character.  The subject of the story is government, its power, and how to keep it in check.  The subject is our personal privacy and where the line should be drawn.  We need to be talking about this on a national scale.

I am embarrassed as an American and as a person that this is what interests the masses today.  As long as we have television, the internet, and something entertaining on the news, the government is apparently allowed to do whatever they want without hearing a peep from the people.  Well, as long as that something involves national security.  If is has to do with whom other people are allowed to marry, people can never say enough.

There are parts of me that are genuinely proud of how far humans have come, what we can do, where I think we are headed in the future.  That part of me is an optimist.  Then there are parts that are disgusted at how ignorant we can be, how easy we can be manipulated, how evil we can be to each other.  That part of me thinks we are all doomed.  I am the latter part today.