The Secret Agent

This is a title I bogued from the late Rory Gallagher. I had several options of titles for this rant, but Rory is one of my favorite guitarists so I chose his tune to intro my unwanted opinion. I could have used The Spy by The Doors, but that is almost as obscure as the title I chose. I also could have used Johnny Rivers's Secret Agent Man from the TV series that starred Patrick McGoohan, but that's not obscure enough for my tastes. Enough of that, let's get down to what I'm up in arms about today. More than a week ago, a contractor for the NSA revealed that they have access to our cell phone and e-mail records. That's got a lot of people up in arms. The whole conspircay theory, Big Brother mind-set is worried about our privacy. That's a legitimate gripe. It is no secret that cell phone signals are transmitted through the air like radio, and it isn't too difficult to intercept those signals, so if you have anything personal to discuss with your other party, DON'T do it over the phone! It's that easy. After the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S was wondering where our security agencies were when all this was being planned. We are very anxious to point the finger when the ball is dropped, but when steps are taken to prevent such actions we are quick to point the finger and moan about our rights being violated. I have no objection to anyone checking my phone records, if it'll keep me from being blown up, that's just a part of the price we pay for our freedom. On the other hand, I can see why this high school drop-out Snowden, felt that he had to blow the whistle on the NSA, it is something that we should be aware of when we use social media, but the dammage he's done cannot be reversed. The bad guys now know that they have to find another way to interact with each other,so now& they will resort to whatever is necessary to accomplish their evil deeds, making it more difficult for us to stay one step ahead of them. First of all the NSA is not able to monitor every idiot who makes a cell phone call or sends an e-mail, it is completely impossible. Secondly, if they did eavesdrop on all of our calls, they'd have to replace their staff on a daily basis, because they'd be bored to death at an alarming rate. When I used to commute to work by bus, I often heard one side of some loudmouth's conversation who was yapping incessantly while riding, and the inane stories that I heard half of were astoundingly stupid! Try to image hundreds of thousands of these idiotic tirades that occur every hour of every day worldwide, and then picture yourself having to put your ear in and follow along. You'd be nuts in less than an hour, I can almost guarantee that. So if the NSA wants to monitor me while I tell my friends that the Amy Mann concert I just saw was terrific, that's fine with me. I seriously doubt that Amy's got a nuclear device in her guitar case.