NSA Invasion of Privacy

A worrisome plot detail on recent episodes of The Good Wife. One scene involved cubicles at a NSA site, computer geeks there monitoring phones, one of which is
Alicia’s. They’re listening to what they call a “hot” phone, that is, a phone that, although turned off, can still transmit sounds and conversations as far away as ten feet. Even sounds involving sexual relations between her and her investigator/lover Jason. This takes invasion of privacy to a frightening level. Edward Snowden warned us of this agency activity. Smart phones can be accessed remotely, turned on, and then have an app attached that causes the phone only to pretend to turn off but that really stays on. This whole world of communication involving phones and computers is almost incomprehensible to all us non-nerds. Is it necessary for our national security to do this? Is Orwell’s frightening image of Big Brother now here thirty-two years later? I guess so. We learned a hard lesson from 9-11, and other terrorist groups have made it imperative to find the bad guys before they can blow us up. And the ubiquitous phone is the best way to find them. But there must be safeguards built in that limit what can be listened to and recorded. I’m assuming that NSA nerds have a list of potential terrorists to listen to. Okay. And there must be a list of words and phrases that flag someone’s phone, even though it’s not on that terrorist list. Okay. To be safe and secure, we have to give up some of our rights to privacy. Okay. But not all of them. And not given up for prurient eavesdropping (as with Alicia and Jason) or political pressure (as with Peter Florrick’s futile run for the presidential nomination). Hey, NSA, CIA, FBI, how about downsizing just a bit, down to just a medium-sized Brother.

This is the second time I've written about Big Brother. Anyone interested in what I had to say in 2013 can go to the right and click on the Featured Post.

And a mention of aging: I just found out I'm seven months younger than Willie Nelson and seven and a half years younger than Cloris Leachman. There. That should make me feel better. But only a little.