Responses to Articles Relating to Privacy

Obama, You Must Act Now on Your Promise to Reform the NSA

Amie Stepanovich, Wired.com

Over a year after Snowden and the revelation of the NSA's surveillance activities, the USA Freedom Act will soon hit the Senate floor. The bill will supposedly end or curtail the government and NSA's overextended capabilities to gather data about American citizens without probable cause. The article is urging the president to encourage this bill to be passed soon. The author fears that if it is not passed before the new Republican congress, the bill will be shot down or watered down and strangled.

Being in direct violation of the Constitution and should not be tolerated by the people or those overseeing the operation.

While personally it is nice to know that someone cares about my information, I'm not of the ideology that taking away the rights of the many to protect ourselves from the few is going to work out in our favor. If we are doing this for protection from terrorists, then we are playing directly into their hands. The point of terrorism is to use isolated acts of atrocity and violence to frighten people. Despite the fact that even with all the bombings and attacks that have occurred on airplanes it is statistically more dangerous to drive your car while sober and focused in a familiar setting. All the TSA pat downs and mass surveillance in the world will not be able to stop 9 people from formulating a plan in their basement.

I think that as time has passed our government has always consistently expanded executive power of the state, and show no designs of truly intending to slow down. Even if this bill passes, unfortunately it will continue to do so unless there is a massive culture change in the highest echelons of government.

Did President Obama Just Break the Internet?

Nick Gillespie, Time Magazine

The issue discussed in the article is that of net neutrality. The idea is that after a court decision this past January internet service...