Is big brother watching?

As I was reading an AP article written by Lolita Baldor, picked up by the Las Vegas Review Journal, it made me think back to when I was in school. This article is about the Obama administration's push to allow law enforcement agencies easier access to internet spying, or as they call it eavesdropping. The article made me think about the history textbooks with the pictures of the big brother propaganda campaign. Was our own government really spying on its own citizens? That was a question that no one, outside the government could really answer, unfortunately we don't have to ask that question anymore.

The government feels that since communications technology has changed so rapidly, that they need to have access to all American's internet traffic, emails and social network sites. It seems all the encrypted technologies frustrate the government on their ability to spy on people. The rationale is they need to eavesdrop on conversations involving terrorism, crimes or other public safety issues. Now who determines what constitutes a public safety issue? It appears the new regulations would mandate any company that provides any sort of communication services would be required to make unscrambled texts of phone calls, e-mails and computer traffic readily accessible to law enforcement agencies. This includes places such as Twitter, Facebook, My Space, Skype and all other social networks. All of this compliance wouldn't come without cost, the cost to retrofit the software to comply with new regulations; I'm sure the government would be more than happy to spend tax payer money on systems making it easier for them to spy on us. Law enforcement claims it needs the wiretaps to obtain information critical to obtain convictions and supporters of the new regulations say it would not expand law enforcement authority and would only involve legally authorized intercepts.

This is nothing more than a power grab by the federal government and law enforcement agencies to invade the privacy of United States citizens. They hide these intrusions into our privacy behind the banner of safety, they need to spy on citizens to catch terrorists and other criminals. How are they going to know who is a criminal or a terrorist without listening in and reading everyone's private information? These proposed regulations severely infringe on the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The worst part is this is just the tip of the iceberg. The federal government, the courts and law enforcement agencies have been stealing our liberties from us for a long time. It didn't start with this administration and it didn't start with the USA PATRIOT Act from the last administration. It's been happening slowly, so we don't notice and it's been hidden behind the veil of fear and public good.