Our entire lives are spent with technology. Whether its a phone, computer, or television, our hours are consumed with media of some fashion. But the more information that we put into technology, the more valuable it becomes and the more important it is to protect.

We all know about the common identity thief. We all know about the creepy social network stalker. But what about those who have sworn to protect that information? Who monitors them? In reality, the government could be the online predator we should be most afraid of.

Our government is hurting the same people they are trying to protect. As technology grows and expands, so does the government’s resources. They have access to the information on nearly every electronic device.

“Governments can listen in on cell phone calls, use voice recognition to scan mobile networks, read e-mails and text messages, censor web pages, track a citizen’s every movement using GPS, and can even change email contents while en route to a recipient,” according to a blog post on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website. That is a shocking reality, and a clear violation of the most basic human rights.

Honest people with no criminal record can now be monitored 24/7 through the NSA’s vast network of cameras and info extracting devices. Recently, the court okayed the police to use warrantless cameras. This gives them the ability to track and monitor completely innocent people. Social networking sites are also under the government’s thumb. Just as our friends have access to our pages, complete strangers can access that information as well.

Many of these laws are coming into exsistence because of The Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was created in October of 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks. This act dramatically reduced the restrictions that law inforcment have when gathering information. Although it was designed to prohibit another terrorist offensive, it actually began a transformation that has allowed the government far to much freedom.

In countries such as China, entire websites are wiped off of the internet. These governments do this because they want to restrict their citizens resources by limiting their knowledge and access to information. Although this isn’t a serious problem in America, other parts of the world have huge issues with this type of privacy violation.

In fact, the head of the U.S. governments spy network, the Director of National Intelligence, has admitted that they have violated constitutional rights “at least once.” But this may not be the due to the governments struggle for power as much as it is due to us allowing them to take control.

The citizens in our society constantly turn a blind eye to our authorities, assuming that they are the ultimate authority, the ultimate good. They aren’t God. They are humans just like us. And in their humanity, they experience the same senses of greed, dishonesty, and corruption.

At Westminster, our students are divided. While some don’t really care, others believe that the government is seriously infringing on our personal privacy. The government needs to be more limited so that each of it’s citizens can enjoy their basic human rights.