Homeland Security and Technology

First of all, I would like to state that what happened on Sept. 11th was a poor excuse for creating the Patriot Act. I'm sure the government wanted to spy on people way before 9/11, but didn't have any justification to do so. This is supposed to be the land of the free, but if people are constantly being watched, having their personal belongings checked, and can't use certain words because they’re considered threats...then how is that being free? Personally when traveling, having security guards and police everywhere makes me feel like I'm in prison or some kind of criminal.

I’ve never heard of the computer security systems mentioned in the book, so in my opinion they aren’t widely publicized unless someone was looking for information on them. It’s not like the government advertises these systems to make the public aware.

The PROTECT system seems to be more focused towards a chemical attack, but terrorists haven’t even done that…it’s always been bombs.

US-VISIT is probably the stupidest system designed. Instead of monitoring foreign visitors/travelers who come here legally on passports, I think they should use it to track down the immigrants who come here illegally.

The MATRIX seems to be the only decent computer security invented. It mainly focuses on criminal and terrorist intelligence data, which I think all of the security systems should be about. Security technology shouldn’t breach into people’s lives that aren’t guilty or suspicious of anything.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is something that really makes me mad. Instead of using this for niched investigations, they monitor cell phones and e-mail worldwide and even have translators so they know what people are talking about in other languages if it’s not English. I don’t want the government listening in on my phone conversations; they must be really bored if that’s the case.

The government has all of these ‘intelligence’ systems in place, but yet they still don’t get much data from them. George Bush admitted that the intelligence was wrong when he went to war in Iraq (which he was lying about anyway, he knows why he went there), so I ask why spend all of this money on computer technology and ‘homeland security’ when the information being given isn’t even accurate? No matter how much security they have in America or in the world, someone will always bypass it. I think our government underestimates the intelligence of terrorists and foreigners (whether they are allies or not).

All of this computer technology is just used to violate people’s privacy, which offends me as an American. People might as well go around telling others their social security number. With these computer systems nothing is safe. Computers can be hacked into and everyone’s information is just sitting there on a database that ANYONE can get if they really wanted to. That doesn’t make me feel safe at all.

I definitely believe the government has gone too far. It’s against the constitution and human rights. They are the ones doing something illegal and are our worst enemy. I think we should be monitoring them.

George Bush is the worst president ever and I think he should be impeached, he may not lie under oath, but he has lied and admitted to it and that’s reason enough to kick him out of office. I can’t wait until he’s gone. Thank you for your time :)