Monitor My Phone

One reason there is so much excitement about the NSA data collection story is that most people think the world began when they were born.  Well certainly their world began but the slightest exhibition of curiosity would tell them that something happened before their birth; if only their conception.  The security agencies of the United States, and most likely other nations who could afford it, have been keeping track of communications since it became possible in the late 1940s.

I served in the US military from 1966-1970 and can assure you that we were told that all communications in the United States were monitored by the CIA.  In fact there is a famous, huge, black building in Washington DC that houses the crypto code breaking organization.  Every US military base has a similar operation.  These listening posts check for patterns of communication, word association, and order to determine if a threat is imminent.

The current uproar is ridiculous.  There is hardly any privacy left in the US and certainly not in the rest of the world.  Americans behave like naïve children. This very communication is being monitored if only by my ISP, hackers are able to track every keystroke made on anyone’s computer.  Credit card companies know more about their customers than do the customers themselves.

I think the Democrats have overreached on this issue.  Their outrage is false as is most of what they claim to hold dear.  It is essential that the US protect itself from its enemies, among whom the wacko Left might be included, that is the only real job of the federal government.  The hearings on this matter will be very interesting, especially those pertaining to the phone companies’ complicity.  In 1994 the Democrat controlled congress passed a law, signed by Bill Clinton, to force the communications companies to reveal customer names and numbers without a warrant.  This answer to why phone monitoring is legal might come back to haunt them.