ACLU Sues Government Over NSA Surveillance

This was an article from "BBC."

This article reported on the recent lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the US government. The ACLU wants more details on the NSA's overseas surveillance program and the executive order that established it. They previously lost a case in which they argued that the NSA's surveillance activity violated the Constitution. The judge over-ruled their appeal on the grounds that the massive amounts of data being monitored by the NSA is only being used to disrupt terrorist activities.

I feel like I am more ambivalent than most on the issue of the NSA's surveillance program. I didn't quite feel the vociferous outrage that a lot of my peers did when the program was exposed. Frankly, I don't feel my rights to privacy are all that compromised and I don't feel like my ability to conduct my life according to my own will has been inhibited at all. I mostly feel a sense of apologetic sympathy for the poor NSA technician that has to wade through all of my boring telephone calls and emails. Maybe I'll start using more trigger words like "nuclear purge" just to give them something to do.

The article talks about how the massive body of digital data moving within our population would inevitably be tapped by the government. I agree that the inevitability of it seemed obvious, and that the methodology by which they've begun to monitor it seems equally inevitable.

The most insidious element of this whole thing is the way the government is beginning to encroach on civil-liberty violations. Do I care that someone is listening to every time I call my grandparents or reads all of the emails I send to my teachers? Not particularly. Do I care that this program might be setting a tone for the expansion of future morally-ambiguous domestic policies? Yeah, more than I care about someone sitting in a cubicle getting to know my late-work emails intimately.

I think that the government actually hasn't ventured that far from their designated powers. If there is quantifiable evidence that the program is being useful in the disruption of terrorist activities, then I have no problem with the monitoring. If it isn't, I would be more worried about wasted tax-dollars than the potential violation of personal liberties. There hasn't been any evidence that the gathered information is being used to unjustly subjugate American citizens. I think that particular allegation is born more out of misplaced government suspicion and paranoia that any realistic concerns.

Perhaps I am forgetting a fairly obvious point. If so, feel free to leave it in the comments.