Who guards the guards?

Over the summer, revelations about NSA surveillance rocked the political world.

By “rocked the political world,” I obviously mean that a few disgruntled congressmen made a few angry speeches, some groups began efforts to take the issue to court and then everyone went back to commiserating about Robb Stark’s death in Game of Thrones.

This reaction was entirely reasonable. After all, the NSA isn’t spying on you, right? The Red Wedding was more important.

Don’t worry. The NSA could only possibly be collecting information on your correspondence patterns if you use a phone, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype or Apple products. If that’s not you, then this article doesn’t apply to you and the only use for this column is as kindling for the fire that I hope keeps your cave warm tonight.

There is, however, one foolproof safeguard that will protect your liberty, and ensure that the government can only listen in on you if they have a reason.

A court created under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) must approve all government requests to actually review the content of communication. These 14 guys are all that stand in between your Facebook chats and an NSA agent, but they should be enough, right?

As it turns out, all the judges on this court are appointed by the same person, they meet in secret and they only hear the government’s side of the case before issuing a ruling.

These circumstances have ensured that FISA granted 99.95 percent of the governments requests in which it was th eonly side presenting an argument. Plot twist.

But who cares as long as you aren’t doing anything wrong?

Unfortunately, the knowledge that someone is watching will affect our behavior whether we are doing something wrong or not.

Think of a class you hate. Now think of how differently you would talk about that class with your friends if you knew the professor was reading your texts, even if he promised it wouldn’t affect your grade.

Now take that general unease and apply it to the whole American political system
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While the government may never stuff a black bag over your head, the reach of the surveillance state is ever-expanding. It could gradually warp the state of political debate in our country until it’s not possible for anyone to express themselves fully.

No matter your ideology, this should scare you.

You will always disagree with something that the government does, and you should always be able to articulate exactly why you disagree without fear of consequences.

We are reaching a turning point in this development of a surveillance state.

If we do not speak out now, we may be effectively forfeiting our right to free speech in the future.
Or, you could just decide that you can live in a world where you are always watched, because you have more important things to do.

After all, the series finale of Breaking Bad is coming up.