WHAT'S WRONG WITH DOMESIC NSA SURVEILLANCE?

SPECIAL POST

Yesterday, it was revealed that telecommunications giant AT&T has had a very close working relationship with the National Security Agency.  Billions of emails, cell phone calls and land line calls were collected and handed over to the NSA on a monthly basis... over 400 billion records in one of its initial startup months.  

There is a legitimate reason for NSA to have access to some of this material, and it definitely does involve national security.  One of the difficulties in staying on top of terrorist communications is that they don't use the same phone number or the even the same method of communication consistently;  on a daily basis they can switch from one to another.  Rand Paul's argument is that there is a legal method for obtaining warrants to monitor, but things change so rapidly that by the time you can obtain a warrant, it is outdated and useless.   

So, the argument continues, it is more efficient and productive to be able to monitor everything and then to cull out the suspicious activity and break it down into something useful.  

Fine, I get that.  

But here's the problem: The blanket collection of such information over a period of time opens the door widely to the collection of data that can be used to persecute political enemies.  We already know that the IRS was using tax information to go after political enemies such as the Tea Parties.  If you or I are consistently sending out emails and creating blogs that denigrate the president or some facet of government, this NSA routine can provide fodder for the IRS to start auditing us on a monthly basis or for the EPA to nail us for allowing lawn fertilizer to get into water draining down street gutters.  

This administration is more than capable of thinking in those terms; they've even been caught red-handed monitoring phone calls of conservative reporters, as we all know.  

So, it's not the legitimate collection of information to be used in furthering national security that offends my senses; it's the sinister thinking and agenda of our government that scares the hell out of me, and that bullshit has to be brought to a stop.   

That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.