You Are Being Watched

Am I to understand that Americans are really that upset over the government’s supposed spying on us?  Is this such a cause for concern that people are actually up in arms about it?  Really?  Wow.  If you ask me, there are a lot of narcissistic people out there with not only too much time on their hands, but with too high an opinion of themselves if they believe that they hold more than just some casual interest to the government.  I think people are seriously overthinking this.

Does the government even have the man power to watch EACH and EVERY ONE of us?  In 2006 there were over 22,600,000 Americans over the age of 18.  How many government employees are there out there who are charged with keeping tabs on all of us?  I hope there are at least 10,000 so that each one of them only has a case load of about 2,260 people each.  Perhaps this should be outsourced overseas because it seems like the United States government might lack the resources to watch a group this big.  

Realistically speaking, I’m thinking there must be some kind of “trigger” in peoples activity that prompts a government agent to begin looking into their activity.  I say, good.

But are there that many people out there afraid that what they’re doing on line might be watched?  Frankly, if the government wants to look at my bank accounts, read my e-mails and see what I’m watching on TV, they can be my guest.  I’m pretty sure the joke would be on them when they find that the raciest thing I put in an e-mail is that my husband sometimes doesn’t have clean underwear and I regularly dream about an old boyfriend with a perm.  Oh and that I’m a religious viewer of I Dream of Jeannie.   After half an hour of looking into my finances and on line activity they would learn that I’m ridiculously cheap and routinely put birthday hats on pictures of my dogs using Martha Stewarts latest photo app on my iPad.  Uh oh, now I’m on the No Fly List.      

I’m wondering if the proper concern for these people isn’t that the government IS watching them but rather that the government has the CAPABILITY to watch them.  I’m all for it either way.  If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about, and frankly, unless you’re doing something shady, more than likely no one is checking into anything you’re doing anyhow.  And if someone is out there doing something deserving of some scrutiny, then like I said, I’m all for it.  If the government can access the computer of just one madman and stop him before he acts, that’s OK in my book.

In fact, not only do I agree with it, I’d like to apply for a job doing it.  But I don’t know if I want to move to Mumbai.