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Be aware: I ask that we as Americans be aware

I am amazed at the voices coming out to rage over the NSA.  I am amazed for these are people whom I consider to be informed.  I thought to myself are Americans really so sheltered?  Maybe I am just that paranoid.  I have long known my government watches me.  I am waiting for the day the government pays off my student loans (hint:  I am going back to school).  I digress. 

The recent excitement over the NSA is alarming for it show how much of a low information society we have become.   Daily Kos beat me to the punch in pointing out the NSA's activities are news.  Given it is the government everything has been documented and made public for years we only had to read it to know.  Also, every federal governmental agency is given funds by the House.  The House controls the purse strings. 

In 2011 I had a very long discussion with someone in the IT industry about government eavesdropping.   This person argued that the very thing "reveled" by Snowden could not occur. After awhile I let the discussion with this Navy vet drop.  I should state, technically I am a Navy vet and I also work in IT.  I am also a programmer by education and hobby.  However, my background is not how I knew the government had the capabilities to preform such high level monitoring.  I read.  I read the documents made public by the government and the bills pushed through in Congress. 

We in America are at fault for being willfully ignorant.  We have access to information at the touch of a fingertip yet we spend more hours on the Kardashians than warranted.  I care more about laws that impact the American population than I do the dress worn by some celebrity.  We are at fault as a nation.  As parents we should require more critical thinking in our homes.  We should teach inference to our children and expand their vocabularies.  It is sad and shameful that we are in a tizzy over the NSA when it has been there all along. 

Please take time to read the links.  The more we know the better decisions we make when voting.  Congress shifted to the Dems in 2006 in part to repeal some of the executive orders of the Bush administration that made spying on and detention of citizens easier and without punishment (Constitutional violation).  The Dems did nothing until 2010 (Affordable Care Act).  People face it; we are at fault for the state of our government.  We must continue to take action in America before all of our rights are lost( We do not have a right to own assault weapons, just arms). 


Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_National_Intelligence

http://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=2dadce597fc84e2&q=warrantless+wiretapping

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/10/1215010/-History-of-NSA-warrantless-wiretapping#

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