Editor:
Welcome to the Surveillance State ... you're late.
As this week's National Security Agency's (NSA) electronic spying revelations trickle down through the media, some people are feeling shocked about how far-reaching the whole affair is.
If anyone had any illusions that their privacy was safe on-line or over cellular networks, the record is now set straight. These networks know no boundaries or political persuasions. They just "are" - and we invest in them at our own risk. That 80 to 90 per cent of Internet traffic is routed through the U.S. tells us they are pulling a huge net, and we (Canadians) are fully in it.
Kudos to Edward Snowden for shining a light on this program. I believe his intent was to get us to ask ourselves: "Is this intrusion on our privacy worth the value of the so-called targeted (anti-terrorist) information?"
However, the fact that the NSA (an organization rooted in secrecy and self-interest) has been collecting this data unfettered for over a decade begs a more relevant question: "Do we have a choice?"
Paul Dwyer, Halfmoon Bay
