We the people of the United States need to defend our Fourth Amendment rights before we lose more to the illegal spying done by our government.
For nearly fifteen years and as long as I have been alive we have been living in an age of harsh data collection and retention under laws known as the Patriot Act. The laws allow for a collection of phone and internet records without the victim's knowledge. Recently, a court decision ruled that the NSA went beyond the limits of the Patriot Act, which may lead to the shutdown of their bulk data collection. However, this didn't stop the Patriot Act. It only stated that the NSA violated it. What must be done now is to ensure that the Patriot Act is obliterated entirely and civil liberties such as privacy are restored.
The problem with being spied on innocently is that not only does the NSA look at you, they keep what they find for long periods of time. This creates a database of all Americans; innocent or not, that are spied on.
A lot of people believe that the NSA is not doing anything illegal because they obtain warrants. The NSA only obtains generalized warrants. One such warrant allows them to seize and keep phone records from cell phone companies. Being able to do this is too much power for a democratic nation to have.
I see a country twenty years from now where privacy and free speech no longer exist. If we can stop this infringement on our rights now, we will be able to protect them for the future. As Americans, we have the right to privacy, and we have the right and the need to defend it. We must begin small, by putting a stop to the reauthorization of section 215 of the Patriot Act, set to expire on June 1st.