On February 8, Stephen Braun of the Associated Press reported in his article “NSA gets under 30% of phone data” that the US government’s data collection has had a massive drop off since 2006.
According to the article, this is due to the Obama Administration wanting to end the collection of phone data.
Despite this, Braun reports, “Obama has committed to ending government storage of phone records but still wants the NSA to have full access to the data.
National security officials did not immediately comment on the new reports.”
It causes many a great swell of relief that the NSA has dropped off in collecting data.
Perhaps this news means that our own government has curved terrorist activity enough to confidently drop off surveillance.
Or, the government has finally started to realize what a gross infringement on personal privacy this is.
The troubling aspect of the article is the second half of the quote that was mentioned above.
It seems like a dodge for President Obama to say that he wishes to drop data collection, yet insist that the NSA should have access to that information whenever they need it.
That sounds like a promise that starts out by backtracking.
It’s not enough to demand that the NSA should stop collecting personal data and then say that they should still have full access to the data when needed.
We at The Xavierite do not believe that there is any sort of foul play at large.
Policies like this were created for protective measures.
However, when the leader of the country believes that the need for this surveillance should be decreased or, according to Braun, ended completely, it brings up the question why then would he believe that the NSA should still have access to the phone records of Americans?
If the need to collect the personal data of Americans because a terrorist threat is among us, inform us why these policies still must exist.
If there is no need to collect this data anymore, then collection should end.
To protect a country in this day and age must be a tiresome process.
People can connect with each other from opposite sides of the globe and create plots that could be used to hurt Americans.
But, we must always be mindful of when these preventative measures either overstep their bounds or become extraneous.
Clearly the NSA has seen a need to decrease their surveillance, yet there appears to be some sort of reservation about letting go of this data collection.
We at The Xavierite are looking for some sort of explanation of why the NSA feels that they can drop in their collection of phone data, yet why the current administration feels the need to still have full access to this data.
America is a country worth fighting for, but we must remember to question how it is that we are fighting for America’s safety and at what cost we seek safety.
It may seem as if though we are over analyzing, but the devil is always in the details and the details must always be searched with a fine-toothed comb.
We do not doubt that government has our best interest in mind, but we must also remember not to overlook when complications or questions arise.
The Xavierite Staff
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