NSA Leak Scandal

"Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying

Surfing the internet is a lot like driving down the interstate; information is readily available and the speed at which we receive this data is high. Our government's policing of the information highway has gone far beyond arbitrary ticketing. We are facing a dilemma in our Capitalistic and consumer oriented world, where our U.S. government is becoming almost indistinguishable from a corporation.

In other words, they should be paying us for our information and should not be allowed to steal data from the common citizen. We have a responsibility as information and social media users to know how much of our personal information is available to outsiders, and just who is taking our information and collecting it. We need to know where our information is going and why. Socially conscious users are butting heads with government influenced consumers. Our current President claimed that the NSA was not gathering information on everyone, but without whistleblowers and leaks from individuals invested in Democracy, we wouldn't even know that this was a lie.

In summary, to have a true Democracy and continue to have a collective free society, we have to have laws in place that protect the people from abusers of our constitution and rights to the free flow of information. Without social media laws we will eventually be stripped of what makes us free as individuals, citizens, and we will no longer live without fear of gross manipulations of our right to privacy and safety of our personal data.