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This column reflects the opinion of the writer. Learn about the differences between a news story and an opinion column.

Damned if you do …

After 9/11, our government was excoriated for not connecting the dots to avoid the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers. Today, our government is lambasted for invading American’s privacy while presumably trying to connect the dots.

It is a clear case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The old Wired magazine in the early 1990s published an article regarding surveillance. It forecast that surveillance would become widespread and inevitable, as it is surely has. Wired asked the question: “Who’s watching the watchers?”

Who is watching Google and Verizon and the other gatherers? Apparently, Google and Verizon and the other gatherers’ legal teams. Reassuring, isn’t it?

Pandora’s Box has been open for years and there is no going back. That is, unless we start using the United States Postal Service; there’s been no outcry that letters are being read on a wide-scale basis.

Hope Roszell

Spokane

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