When Is Enough Enough?

By Christopher Cross

The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.

That is what the New York Times reported recently in an article spelling out the manner that colleges and universities are protesting about being forced to spend roughly $7 billion to upgrade their Internet systems so law enforcement can have an easier time spying on American citizens. 

Now, in the five years since 9/11 we have yet to see any real evidence of an impending second strike in the United States.  At best we have rountinely hear one alarm triggered after another only to find that it was a false alarm and one has to wonder if these alarms were merely propaganda to fuel the arguments seemingly justifying the war. 

It is immaterial what your views are about the war; whether or not we should be in Iraq and still engaged in the war that has now claimed the lives of two thousand service men/women.  For, here we have an even greater question in when is enough enough when it comes to the U.S. government spying on American citizens?

Some might say that it is a necessary evil when faced with a war ~ but here the war is far more about fighting an idea (notwithstanding the property rights the U.S. seeks and hopes to gain as a result)  and ideas cannot and never will be trampeled completely. 

Is this therefore justification to spy on American citizens?  And if it is, is this also not the same as the U.S. government saying that American citizens are the enemy?  For spying holds no other purpose than to watch those whom you suspect are your enemy. 

Personally, I believe we have far more to fear from overzealous and egotistical government officials than we have to fear from any American citizen and spying serves no substantial purpose other than to seemingly justify another dictatorship existing in our world history. 

It puts even honest people on edge knowing that they can easily become the subject of some erroneous federal investigation simply and only becuse they expressed their dissent in an E-mail about government officials that was inturn intercepted by an overzealous official wanting to make a name for him/herself.  Or because in the process of studying for some exam in College their Internet research took them to a website the government has [secretely] declared to be a prime target for terrorists; never bothering to inform the public so that honest folks can not innocently access such and therein be falsely accused.

And since torturing of prisioners appears to be the sandard and government sanctioned method of treating accused party's even if they are innocent.  Who is to say that one day it is not you, your loved one or even your parent of sibling who becomes the subject of the next government investigation.