Olympics: Invasion of the Russians

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As Americans, certain rights are assumed. We have freedoms that most countries don’t have. We wake up every morning with a different lifestyle and different outlook. Unlike some countries, we can wake up and post how we’re feeling, especially about the government. Unfortunately for citizens in other countries, this isn’t always the case.

We wouldn’t be able to imagine our world without our basic rights. And, although they sometimes seem like some of them may be on the brink of being taken from us (gun rights, abortion rights, etc), there are some that would nearly impossible to take from us, rights that have changed and shaped our society. For example, freedom of speech. As a communication major, I could not imagine not having the right to speak freely about what is going on in our community, our country, our world. Many people think this communication should be completely free, these same people argued about the Patriot Act that was passed during the administration of President George W. Bush. This act allowed the government to listen into to certain communication that had the possibility of a threat or information of a threat against our country. This made some people feel safer and made other people angry about the fact that our privacy and communication was under surveillance.

 The Guardian published an article about how the Russian government is going to monitor “all communications” during the upcoming Winter Games. While Russia has been on the defensive as of late, is this extreme? To Russians and other people, it may not seem that way, but to Americans it seems very invasive.

Although the Russian government won’t use or find most of the communication to be valuable to their needs, how does it make you feel to know that you are constantly being watched? Similar to George Orwell’s 1984, “big brother” is always watching. So…take advantage of what we have in America…even though during a government shut down everything seems lost.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/russia-monitor-communications-sochi-winter-olympics

Hayley Carpenter
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