Acting like no one else matters
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Disclosures that the US National Security Agency has access to Americans' phone and computer communications and is eavesdropping without court-approved warrants have been met with a silent thud by the in-denial powers that be.
The overreaches of the NSA and other US agencies should have been nipped in the bud long ago. This is one of many examples of how politics trumps security, ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.
We need legislation to ensure constitutional rights, making phone and computer records private.
Echelon is another, even scarier project, raising major Orwellian cover-up concerns about privacy and security that affect every citizen on our dysfunctional planet. It highlights the breakdown of the system of checks and balances and the separation of powers. Brave whistleblowers have forced us to reflect seriously about wrongs such as wire-tapping, and the future of the unruly cyber-world. Our mutual goal must be transparency and reform.
Charles Frederickson
Bangkok
