AT&T's fiber optic cable system was supposedly a breakthrough. It provided faster internet, better phone connection, and smoother television broadcasting at a cheaper cost. To the normal customer this seems awesome; however, according to an article "The US government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001". Everything I have done has been recorded. Apparently AT&T has created a splitter that forms copies of all phone calls and files and sends them to the NSA in the form of metadata. This is an invasion of my privacy and I feel it is necessary to hold the government accountable. Their argument is that "if we have nothing to hide then we shouldn't worry about hiding it." Well, now they're the definition of hypocrites. Why did they hide this so long? Because it's illegal. It's a complete disruption of our Bill of Rights. The article also highlights how the government demanded Verizon to hand over all the phone calls information. After a court case, Verizon was forced to hand over the information. If we let this go, what's next? Our freedom of speech? I can't express how irritated this makes me. We're moving away from a government of the people to a government controlling the people. I suppose you'll tell me it's for "my safety", just like the war in Afghanistan was to prevent terroristic attacks. The war in Afghanistan was solely for oil and this whole dragnet garbage isn't for my safety. I can't trust what the government is doing. I'm at a point where I'd consider a complete restructure of the system. President Obama is nothing but a figure head; no, I'm not displaying my political views, but he doesn't make the choices. Big businesses tell him what to do. Money is making the choices and there is no ethics behind it.
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying
"NSA Spying | Electronic Frontier Foundation." Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
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