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Eye on the World: privacy, surveillance, and national security
When Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, earlier this month revealed the existence of two programs to collect intelligence on phone records and online activity, NSA officials cautioned that the programs only targeted individuals overseas. President Obama added that the government must obtain a warrant in order to target Americans’ communications.
Yet many newspapers have reported, based on leaked documents, that the NSA has frequently monitored Americans, and maintains wide discretion over whom to surveil. Critics in Congress and civil-liberties groups have called for increased scrutiny of the surveillance programs, as well as stronger restrictions on who may be targeted. But some believe Edward Snowden’s actions were disingenuous.
On another note, NSA director Keith Alexander defended the surveillance programs, telling the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the surveillance had helped prevent potential terrorist events more than 50 times since 9/11.
Many would assert that it can be hard for governments to strike a balance between keeping citizens safe, and providing appropriate protections of civil liberties. Sentinel readers have an opportunity to address this issue through prayer, and through a clearer understanding of the real, spiritual source of both safety and freedom.
“Supporting righteous government” is a good place to start. It reminds us that as we pray to perceive “divine intelligence, vision, and decency” we’ll be better able to understand and support the truly valuable and effective elements of a government, and also notice what changes might need to take place. The author adds that God is the basic source of human rights and freedoms, and that His government endangers no one and upholds liberty for all.
“Protecting privacy” explores a different facet of the question. Written in 1979, at a time when the electronic retention of personal data was still a relatively new concept, it argues that we can find an effective spiritual basis for the protection of individuality and individual rights. As we look to God, divine Soul, as the source of our individuality, we find freedom from a picture that says we exist within a complex network of competing motivations and conflicting aims. “Looking to God for government of the individual,” the author explains, “does not blunt but sharpens our sense of individual rights and places the demonstration of them on a solid footing.”