Obama is watching you - America's love affair with Obama, Facebook, and Big Brother

It is difficult to assess if the US government is actively spying on American citizens, but one thing is clear, the capability is there. Certainly, private agencies, including (especially) marketing firms, are capable of identifying and tracking individuals, sometimes to a shocking degree. As Americans who value freedom, we must ask, is Big Brother already watching us?

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - In February, a story broke that revealed a case where the big-box company Target knew a teen girl was pregnant before her father did. And there are plenty of cautionary tales about employers spying on employees and making decisions based on social networking posts. 

In the age of "frictionless sharing" (a phrase coined by Facebook's Zuckerberg meaning the sharing of personal information as second nature) individual privacy is probably at an all time low in the US. One caveat: nothing you post online is truly private - a clever person with the right tools and determination can always find what you post, even if they're "blocked".

However, Americans are more addicted than ever to Facebook and other social sites. In fact, the love affair has reached the point we sometimes automatically upload our photos and "check ins" (our location) without even realizing we have done so. 

Our cell phones, now with standard GPS capability, report our location with such precision police can place criminals (and others) at the scene of a crime using the GPS log - stored on the company's servers. You cannot erase or control this.

Now imagine the power of the government. Presently, the Army Corps of Engineers is constructing a one-million square foot facility in Utah for the National Security Agency (NSA). Soon, the NSA will fill that facility with state-of-the-art equipment and a legion (sorry, Anonymous) of professional computer hackers and ancillary staff. 

Government agencies now have access to unmanned surveillance drones which can monitor both groups and individuals. Several drones are already being used to patrol the US - Mexico border. 

Combine this with the well-done work of private agencies that want to know everything they can about you and you have a recipe for a Brave New World that looks and feels a lot more like 1984.

The handwriting is on the wall. In fact, Congress recently grilled General Keith Alexander, chief of the NSA over the agency's ability to spy on Americans. The General lied, giving a clear, but reserved "no." Watch the video above. The General was emphatic that the NSA does not spy on Americans because "the emails are in the United States." 

The General is playing on a general ignorance about how the internet works.

The internet is like a global post office. Each computer has a unique address, called an "internet protocol" (IP) address. When one person sends information somewhere, such as an email, the email must go through the Domain Name System (DNS), by providing a worldwide, distributed keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet. All information, yes, every bit of information or data on the internet passes through the DNS. 

These main DNS servers are in - you guessed it, the USA, birthplace of the internet.

That's what makes it easy for the government to monitor - everything.

That said, even if the NSA and other agencies cannot spy on information "in the US" they can freely spy on information outside of the US. Therefore, when you send a Gmail message to your next door neighbor, it's possible that message goes through India. In the few seconds it takes to circumnavigate the global web of DNS servers, that message can be intercepted and scanned. 

Does it contain a keyword? Congratulations, you just made the list, welcome to the NSA archive. 

Don't they need a warrant? Technically yes, but warrants are for kids. Meaning that an agency such as the NSA or FBI can do as they please, and "backfill" the warrant, before you even know they're coming. 

Of course, there's the Patriot Act, which is also very helpful. Especially Section 215, which is being secretly interpreted by the Obama administration in such a way that it would cause public alarm if the public knew what was going on. This is according to two Democratic senators who expressed their concerns to Obama last week in a strongly worded letter. 

Whistleblowers have repeatedly hammered the Bush and Obama administrations by disclosing multiple instances of the government aggregating and using private, supposedly protected data to pursue anyone who is deemed a threat. 

So far, the news is troubling, but we're yet to turn into another East Germany where every communication is recorded by the Stasi. But we don't need the Stasi to catch us, for we are doing a good job reporting on ourselves. We have become so caviler about our privacy that we even post the time we arrive home and where we choose to eat dinner right alongside our relationship status and pictures of our children - all without really considering the implications of our thoughtless, now automatic behavior. 

Between that and private companies who want to intimately study your habits, and the government whose sophistication and toolkit is growing by the day, we have, in fact invited Big Brother into our lives. 

And the worst part?

In the end, we really do love Big Brother. 

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