Land of the Oppressed, Home of the Cowards

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Recommended: Civil liberties in the united states

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”-Benjamin Franklin. We live in an age where governments invade the private lives of its citizens in the name of safety. Ironically, anyone who displaying a hint of paranoia when it comes to government surveillance or secrecy is automatically labeled a conspiracy theorist or a kook. It seems that in the U.S., it has become frowned upon to believe that our government would ever infringe on our rights, unintentionally or deliberately. After all, they can’t, it says so in the constitution! But, alas, it turns out “Big Brother” has been very busy the past decade. It seems as though every year new government scandals arise, from cover ups to spying on U.S. citizens. Law enforcement and government agencies are slowly finding “loopholes” through problematic areas of the constitution, with little regard for citizens’ rights. It is our duty as citizens, to not tolerate violations of the law that our nation was founded upon. By examining history and other countries’ policies regarding privacy and freedoms, it becomes clear that if these breaches of our rights are allowed to go on, we will be living in a country of fear and oppression.
History has shown that the U.S. government has no problem lying to citizens, whether it is to enter a war, or to suppress information highlighting the atrocious acts committed by our military, or even to At the eve of the U.S.’s involvement in WWII, our government intercepted a message sent by the Japanese military explicitly revealing the upcoming bombing of Pearl Harbor. Knowing full well that innocent lives would be taken in this attack, our government instructed the military to wait idly by. To t...

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.... I firmly believe all evidence points to this being the case. If we as a nation do not stand up and refuse to be subjected to the tyranny of the government concerning our constitutional rights, we will lose them altogether. We will truly be living in the land of the oppressed, and home of the cowards.

Works Cited

Gellman, Barton. "NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of times per Year, Audit Finds." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 21 Aug. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Thomson, Peter M. "Patriot Act Surveillance Powers Protect Americans." Privacy. Ed. Jamuna Carroll. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "White Paper on the USA Patriot Act's 'Roving' Electronic Surveillance Amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

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