They’re Coming For You…

This post may put my life in danger. It could very well put my name on the list of every government agency in this country. I’m about to talk about a very sensitive issue currently in the news in recent weeks. It involves the privacy of every American citizen and what the government was doing behind each and every one of our backs all in the name of keeping the U.S. safe. Based on this news, the government could be spying on my posts this very second and could consider my views on our government (which you know how I feel if you read my "About Me" post) an act of terrorism and cart me off as a terrorist. So, if I happen to disappear from the scene after this post, you know why.

All kidding aside, though, I know that everyone has heard of the man named Edward Snowden who was a former NSA contractor who claimed that the NSA was gathering information on American citizens by illegal and unconstitutional means. This information was being gathered through the internet by companies like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, and Yahoo! just to name a few. This is not just some conspiracy theorist spreading fear off of some paranoid delusion either. It was confirmed by both the NSA and President Obama that the government had this capability. Of course, they denied that the program was used to spy on American citizens, but it was being used to spy on terrorist activity so they could keep the American public safe.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I never really believe half of what the government tells us is true. This news has me really concerned for the safety of our privacy. What scares me even more is that they say they’re doing this to protect us. Why does this sound like the plot for a conspiracy theory movie? Usually, whenever in the movies the government tells you they’re doing something for your own good, it usually is an outright lie. It is usually for the personal benefit of the ones in power. I think this is just a means of tightening the leash around the American public. It seems like more and more each day that the government is trying to limit the American people’s freedoms so they can better control us and take our attention off their abuse of power.

The program used to obtain this information from internet sources among others is called PRISM. It is a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007. The name, PRISM, is actually a code name for a data-collection effort known officially by the SIGAD US-984XN. It originated back on September 11,2007 when President George W. Bush signed the Protect America Act of 2007. This allowed the NSA to start a massive domestic surveillance program. The program is operated under the supervision of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

So, what exactly is PRISM being used for? That is the real question we are faced with. Our government states that it is being used to gather information on foreigners outside the United States who have malicious intentions against us. They say it is for the safety of our country, and the information gathered will be used to fight terrorist plots against the U.S. In some ways, I guess I could see the benefit in that with the increase of hatred towards the United States. Terrorist acts like 9/11, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and other heinous acts against American citizens all over the world in the name of groups like al-Qaeda have shown us that we do have to prepare for such things to protect our citizens as well as our way of living. We learned that since 9/11 the world has become a more dangerous place, and no one was safe from the acts of terrorism. Is that, though, what the NSA is using PRISM for or is there a more nefarious purpose behind the program?

Edward Snowden accuses the NSA of using this program to gather information on U.S. citizens that have absolutely no connections to terrorism or with anyone outside the U.S. He revealed that the NSA could unilaterally access data and perform “extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information” with examples including email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats (such as Skype), file transfers, and social networking details. He summarized that “in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT (signals intelligence) databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Apparently, the analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be U.S. citizens, but in the process, communication of some U.S. citizens are also collected unintentionally.

This is a scary thought. The idea that the government could be peeking around what I do on the internet and could “misconstrue” it as acts of terrorism is frightening. I don’t feel as safe on the internet as I used to. It was bad enough when employers started spying on employees on the internet to determine whether they maintained the “company image” in their private lives as well as their professional lives. Now, we have to worry about “big brother” spying on us and using our own information against us. Are things really that bad in the world today? Do we have to give up so many freedoms for the sake of safety?

Another question that has came up during this chain of event is whether Edward Snowden is a hero or a traitor to his country. It’s been a huge debate among everyone across the country. Some think he went to far when he fled the country. They think that if he really thought his cause was just, he would have stayed in the country to make his case. Others think he has revealed sensitive information to possible enemies of our country and put it at risk. They say he is a traitor and should face the consequences. Others still look at him as a hero of the common man opening our eyes to what our government is really all about. Do you think he is a hero or a traitor? Leave your opinion in the comments below. I would love to hear other people’s take on this.

Before leaving your opinion, though, let’s look at some of the facts. He obviously didn’t do this for money. Before these events, he was living quite comfortably in Hawaii. Now, he’s stuck in a Russian airport with no luxuries whatsoever. What other possible things could have been his motivation to reveal this information to the public? It could be for fame, but would it really be worth all the trouble he’s in for his “sixty seconds” in the spotlight. He could be an actual terrorist looking to destabilize our country, but my question would be why does he try to appeal to American masses.

So, what is his real motivation? In my opinion, I think he wants to honestly inform the American people of what our government is up to and hold them accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, he has made a huge sacrifice in his life to make sure we knew this information. I consider him a hero to us and should be treated as such. He has opened our eyes (which we should have already known before this) to the deceptive approach our government has taken against their own people.It’s time we hold our government accountable for their criminal actions against our freedoms and way of life. Maybe they should have informed us of their activities to keep us safe from the beginning instead of going to the lengths they have to keep their activities off the radar. If they would have been more open and honest with the American people, we might have not been so suspicious of everything they do.

One of the reasons that I tend to believe Edward Snowden’s accusations is the claims by President Obama that one of his goals was to establish a transparent administration so the American people would know what they wanted to accomplish. Obviously, that was an outright lie. At first, they were denying that they were even capable of collecting such data. Only after Edward Snowden stepped forward did they have no choice but to tell the truth. Have they told the whole truth now? I don’t think so because they still say they can’t monitor individual citizen’s conversations (through phones, emails, text messages, social networks, etc.), information, and internet history among other things. How can we believe them after all the lies they have already told? There have been too many denials that have been proven untrue. Their track record is tainted.

Lets look at the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. On March 12, 2013, during a hearing by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he testified that the NSA wasn’t collecting any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. He then stated not wittingly. He said that there were cases where information could have inadvertently be collect, but not wittingly. What kind of political half answer is that? You’re not collecting information on Americans, yet you may have inadvertently but not wittingly. You either did or didn’t, end of debate.

Then, on June 6, 2013, Director Clapper released a statement admitting the NSA collects metadata on millions of American telephone calls. This data included originating and terminating telephone numbers, telephone calling card numbers, IMEI number, time and duration of phone calls, but did not include the name, address or financial information of any subscriber.

On June 7, 2013, in an interview on NBC, Clapper admitted that he didn’t tell the truth at the hearing. He stated that he had chosen “I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner” when he testified.

On June 27, 2013, 26 senators sent him a complaint letter opposing the use of a “body of secret law”. On July 1, 2013, Clapper issued an apology, saying that “My response was clearly erroneous – for which I apologize.” On July 2, Clapper said that he had forgotten about the Patriot Act and therefore had given an “erroneous” answer.

That’s why I believe the government should stop their pursuit of Snowden and begin pursuing the one’s who were behind this cover up. They obviously had no intentions of letting Congress, foreign countries, or the American public know about these clandestine methods of espionage all in the name of “national security”.

Here are some of the reactions of members of Congress:

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), member of Senate Intelligence Committee and past member of Homeland Security Committee

• June 11 “I had, along with Joe Lieberman, a monthly threat briefing, but I did not have access to this highly compartmentalized information” and “How can you ask when you don’t know the program exists?”

Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), principal sponsor of the Patriot Act.

• June 9, “This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.” “President Obama’s claim that ‘this is the most transparent administration in history’ has once again proven false. In fact, it appears that no administration has ever peered more closely or intimately into the lives of innocent Americans.”

Senator Mark Udall (D-CO)

• June 9 “I don’t think the American public knows the extent or knew the extent to which they were being surveilled and their data was being collected.” “I think we ought to reopen the Patriot Act and put some limits on the amount of data that the National Security (Agency) is collecting.” “It ought to remain sacred, and there’s got to be a balance here. That is what I’m aiming for. Let’s have the debate, let’s be transparent, let’s open this up.”

Representative Todd Rokita (R-IN)

• June 10 “We have no idea when they (FISA) meet, we have no idea what their judgments are.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

• June 6 “When the Senate rushed through a last-minute extension of the FISA Amendments Act late last year, I insisted on a vote on my amendment (SA 3436) to require stronger protections on business records and prohibiting the kind of data-mining this case has revealed. Just last month, I introduced S. 1037, the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act.”
• June 9 “I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I’m going to be asking the Internet providers and all of the phone companies: ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit.”

Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)

• June 9 “We will be receiving secret briefings and we will be asking, I know I’m going to be asking to get more information. I want to make sure that what they’re doing is harvesting information that is necessary to keep us safe and not simply going into everybody’s private telephone conversations and Facebook and communications. I mean one of the, you know, the terrorists win when you debilitate freedom of expression and privacy.

Here are responses and involvement of other countries:

Austria

The former head of the office for the protection of the constitution, Rene Polli, stated he knew the PRISM program under a different name. He admitted there were surveillance activities in Austria as well. Already 2009 Polli said the U.S. agencies wanted to do things which did violate Austrian law, but Polli refused to allow such operations.

Australia

The Australian government has said it will investigate the impact of the PRISM program and the use of the Pine Gap surveillance facility on the privacy of Australian citizens.

Canada

Canada’s national cryptologic agency, the Communications Security Establishment, said that commenting on PRISM “would undermine CSE’s ability to carry out its mandate.” Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart lamented Canada’s standards when it comes to protecting personal online privacy stating “We have fallen to far behind” in her report. “While other nations’ data protection authorities have the legal power to make binding orders, levy hefty fines and take meaningful action in the event of serious data breaches, we are restricted to a ‘soft’ approach: persuasion, encouragement and, at the most, the potential to publish the names of transgressors in the public interest.” And, “when push comes to shove,” Stoddart wrote, “short of a costly and time-consuming court battle, we have no power to enforce our recommendations.”

Germany

Germany did not receive any raw PRISM data, according to a Reuters report. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that “the Internet is new to all of us” to explain the nature of the program; Matthew Schofield of McClatchy Washington Bureau said, “She was roundly mocked for that statement.” The former head of the Austrian office for the protection of the constitution, Rene Polli, stated he knew the PRISM program under a different name. Already 2009 Polli said the U.S. agencies wanted to do things which did violate Austrian law. Polli says it is therefore, “absurd and non-natural” should the Germans have not known anything.

Israel

Israeli newspaper Calcalist discussed the Business Insider article about the possible involvement of technologies from two secretive Israeli companies in the PRISM program – Verint Systems and Narus.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, University of Otago information science Associate Professor Hank Wolfe said that “under what was unofficially known as the Five Eyes Alliance, New Zealand and other governments, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain, dealt with internal spying by saying they didn’t do it. But they have all the partners doing it for them and then they share all the information.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has its own surveillance program Tempora, had access to the PRISM program on or before June 2010 and wrote 197 reports with it in 2012 alone. PRISM may have allowed GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material.

I think this whole matter is crazy. We’ve got to put a stop to the government spying on our lives. We, as American citizens, have a right to privacy which has countless times been violated for the sake of national security. Not every citizen is a suspected terrorist so stop treating us as such. If we can’t stop them here, how much further could this go? Do they start controlling what we eat, what we say, what we enjoy, what job we do? It scares me to think of the consequences of this slippery slope we’re going down. Where are the checks and balances for these actions? I think the people behind these programs should be held accountable. We need to bring them up on criminal charges of invading our privacy. We have to do something. We have to put our foot down and take action.

Anyways, I wanted to give you a little information on this political game of Where is Snowden (Waldo)? that has been in the news for the past few weeks. I hope it will open your eyes to what is going on around you and give you initiative to take part in what’s going on. I also want to warn you to be careful what you put on the internet these days because there’s no telling on who’s watching. We no longer live in the country of freedom, choice, and opportunity. We live in a country that gives you freedom when it doesn’t endanger national security or when it suites our leaders. Let’s stand up to this government and make it clear that we’re not going to take this anymore. We want what was promised to us when our forefathers drafted up the original constitution and Bill of Rights. Be active in your local community and stand up for what you believe in. If you don’t, be ready for the consequences. This program is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come if we don’t make a stand now. So, stand with me now, Americans, and say no more to our government. It’s time for a change.

Man of Steel Review (Spoilers)

Hey, all of my Krimsonites! Okay, that was kind of cheesy. I won’t use that term ever again. Anyways, I saw the movie, “Man of Steel”, a couple of weeks ago, and I ‘m here now to give you my review of the movie. Now, I know you’re wondering why I didn’t write this review sooner, but a lot of things came up that prevented me from getting the time needed to write this review. Let me guess, though, that is no excuse, and you’re right. It isn’t so I hope I can make that up to you now.

Well, like I said, I went to see this movie a couple of weeks ago with a few friends which I have to thank one of them for paying my way in. First, I have to admit that I really wasn’t looking forward to this movie. As a lot of people who know me are aware of, I’m not a huge Superman fan. I’ve always had a problem with a character who was designed as almost perfect as he was. He almost had no weaknesses besides what was worked in later (kryptonite, magic, etc.), and he never really had any character flaws until recent times. He was pretty much a super powered boy scout, too perfect for my taste. I guess it also doesn’t help that I’m more of a Marvel fan. I always felt they designed more realistic human characters (with their exceptions) than DC did.

Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to tear this movie apart. Even though I don’t really care for Superman, I did go into this movie with an open mind. I also tried to forget the images I had of the old Superman movie with Christopher Reeve. I’m probably going to get a lot of heat for this, but I thought that movie was terrible. It did a great job of introducing Superman, but the overall story sucked. It was too sappy. He had no real villain to face. The challenges were mediocre at best, and the climatic end where Lois Lane dies was easily overcame by a simple flight around the earth which changed the rotation that apparently reversed time. Anyways, that was the 70s for you. It was your typical campy 70s blockbuster.

I’ll start off by saying this movie definitely surpassed the original 1978 classic. I have to admit that I was taken back by the leaps and bounds this movie had made. This was no boy scout do-gooder. He wasn’t the perfect ideal super hero who never did any wrong. He had doubts about himself. He questioned his father’s wisdom. He made mistakes. He wasn’t perfect which made him a more believable character. Everyone has flaws, even fictional people. It’s all a part of what makes us who we are. For the first time, I felt for the character. He had no idea on who he was, and the decisions he had to make had real consequences from when he had to watch his earth father die to when he had to kill the main villain, Zod.

Speaking of Zod, he was one of the major improvements of the movie franchise. For the first time, there was a villain worthy of Superman’s attention. He wasn’t any bumbling genius (Lex Luthor) who was trying to commit heinous acts just so he could make a buck off of real estate. Zod posed a real threat to the world at large with all of his followers. And his plan wasn’t entirely for evil purposes. He had some what good intentions to save his people from extinction. He just went about it the wrong way in his quest to preserve Kryptonian heritage at the expense of the human race. My possible only gripe about Zod was the fact that the story was in some way a rehash of “Superman II”, but that wasn’t an entirely bad thing. It’s just that Superman has a pretty extensive list of super villains they could have pulled out of the vault instead of choosing the one villain that was created just for the movies.

I’m not saying they should have chose another villain for this movie. I’m just saying they had the option, and I hope they explore that option in the sequels to come. I don’t want them to just rehash old ideas from the Christopher Reeve days. Zod was a good choice. He definitely gave Superman a run for his money which was another improvement of the movie. It had action, and I mean a real knock through buildings and leave Metropolis in ruins kind of slugfest. Superman had to pull out all of the stops to fight Zod and all of his followers. There was no holding back. He had to use his fists and pull no punches. It was the kind of fight I wanted to see in this kind of movie. Now, some people say the fight scenes were too drawn out. I disagree. For this fight to truly be epic, it had to be fought all over Metropolis, across Smallville, and even into outer space. The only part, in my opinion, that was weak was the part where Zod attempted to kill civilians at the end of their fight. It didn’t have that feel that Zod may actually succeed and kill those who Superman swore to protect. It just confirmed that Superman would have no choice but to kill him, something I didn’t think they would let Superman do. It was too anti-climatic. Other than that, I rather enjoyed the action at the end of the movie.

This is how Superman should have been. If they would have taken this approach back in the Christopher Reeve days, I might have actually became a fan. I know special effects were limited back then, but they could have still made the movies more action-packed. That’s why if I watch any Superman movie from that time period, it’s “Superman II”. “Man of Steel” took some of what made that movie successful and improved it tenfold. It wasn’t sappy. It had a huge amount of action, and it may have established the second most successful franchise in DC in recent years.

That’s not to say that the movie was perfect. It definitely had its flaws, but they were from a writing aspect and not because I’m not a Superman fan. As a writer, I tend to notice things in movies that some people miss. For instance, I can tell when they rushed a movie out. It feels like they were more concerned with getting it out to the public rather than making it the best possible movie they can. I also notice things like plot holes and character development.

My first gripe was with Russell Crowe’s character, Jor-El. I think they put too much focus on his character. It felt like they thought the movie just couldn’t survive without help from Jor-El. I like the fact that they did develop who his character was, but he had way too much freedom as some kind of holographic persona of his former self later in the movie. My other gripe about him was that he was supposed to be a scientist, yet he fought like a hardened soldier. I’m not saying a scientist can’t fight, but Zod was supposed to have been bred for combat. He should have wiped the floor with Jor-El. I understand this is Russell Crowe, and he’s usually an action star. The movie wasn’t supposed to be about him, though. He was supposed to play more of a background character, a tool to show who Superman really was. All I can say is that they must have paid him a ton of money just to be a bit part and then realized that was a huge financial mistake, so they wrote more parts for him further in the movie.

My next gripe was the backstory. Overall, it was kind of weak. I’ve heard that some people had complained that the original movie focused too much on Clark Kent’s beginnings, but I disagree. It gave you a true insight on how he became the man in the blue and red suit. They did cover some things about his past in the movie, but left you with a real lot of holes in his backstory. They probably could have left out the entire backstory all together and it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. Now, some people (especially people who knows his origins) thinks it’s boring sitting through his past to get to the parts they want to see where he’s beating the crap out of the bad guys, but I think it is an essential part of explaining why he does what he does especially to those who have never seen Superman before (they do exist). I would have gladly sat through another backstory to get a better feel for this interpretation of Superman like I did with “The Amazing Spider-Man”.

Speaking of backstory, I think Kevin Costner got the short end of the stick in this affair. He is a great actor and could have brought such depth to the character of Clark’s adopted father, Jonathan Kent. Instead, he was reduced to a very small part of the movie. It also didn’t seem to me like he really taught Clark much about being the hero he would become. All he taught him was to hide his power, almost like he should have been ashamed of who he was because he wasn’t human. This was supposed to be an attempt to make Jonathan Kent a more real character, but it just made him forgettable. “The Amazing Spider-Man” suffered the same problems with Uncle Ben. They really didn’t develop any real relationship between Clark and Jonathan. The closest they came to a connection was when Jonathan told Clark how he arrived in their lives. The worse part came when he was killed by a tornado. I had no emotional connection to Jonathan at all, and it didn’t seem like Clark did either. The final message he left Clark didn’t help things. He made Clark watch and not interfere as the tornado swept him away. His last message was hide who you are. He should have been proud of his adopted son’s gifts. Oh, the tornado death was also a little over the top unlike the heart attack he had in the original movie.

I think that was a huge problem with most of the movie. There were no real character connections with a lot of the cast in the movie. Most of the focus was on Superman, Jor-El, Zod, Faora, Colonel Nathan Hardy, and a little bit on Lois Lane which may not be an entirely bad thing. I just think they could have done a little more character development for Lois Lane, Perry White, and Martha Kent. I didn’t really feel any connection for these characters in the movie. They could have been killed off, and I wouldn’t have noticed. I think the relationships these characters have, especially with Clark Kent, help develop what Superman fights for, and it was a lost opportunity in this movie. I hope they do more character development for these characters in future sequels.

Probably the worst is Perry White. His character was totally unnecessary in this movie except maybe to establish where Lois Lane worked and where Clark Kent will work in the future. During the scenes where he and his co-workers were trying to escape the devastation, I felt no empathy for him at all. I felt like the scenes were totally pointless because I wasn’t properly introduced to him. Like I said before, he could have been killed, and I wouldn’t haven’t even taken notice. It’s a shame, tool Laurence Fishburne is another outstanding actor that was crapped upon in this movie. I only hope he will come back to the role in the sequels, so I can see how he will portray this version of Perry White. I want to see more of his character in future movies.

Like I said, this movie definitely had it's flaws, but overall, I really enjoyed this it which is hard for me to say since I’m a Marvel fan. It’s the first movie since Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy that has really shown any kind of real competition for the ever growing collection of Marvel movies out there. Is it my favorite movie? No, I don’t think a Superman movie will ever be my favorite. Did I like this movie? Yes, I really liked the new direction they took with this version. Would I see it again? Yes, I definitely could see myself watching this again especially after hearing about all of the easter eggs that were apparently placed around the film (like Wayne Tech appearing on the satellite that Zod ripped apart). Would I buy it? One of my friends might be surprised, but yes, I will definitely have to buy this movie. I hope the sequels can only build on the success that this movie has established. I also hope they work on the flaws that this film had, or I might not be as lenient on the next one. Anyways, I give it 4 out of 5 stars despite its flaws. I definitely think it is going in the right suggestion, and I suggest this movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. For the Superman fans out there, I suggest watching it a minimum of three times. Anyways, this has been a review by Krimson, and this is Krimson signing off.

*   *   *   *

4 out of 5 stars