The Review Student Magazine-RVHS Spring/ Summer 2014 Volume 1 | Page 27

It also seems to have passed over our heads that the goal of these gathering operations, at home or abroad, is to protect people who live here from having to endure a tragedy and massacre (like the 9/11 attacks) ever again. To do this, they have to watch everyone and be vigilant of everyday occurrences all across the globe. And, yes, this does mean watching people who are citizens as they communicate. If you want to know what happens in these deep dark corners of the American Government that is our spy agencies, here’s how you do it. Go and apply, get your top secret security clearance and then boom…looky here…now you can know. But, if you don’t have this level of clearance and are not an integral part of the government, kindly don’t ask and don’t search. Because the thing is, no one besides the people keeping us running need to know what happens in those corners, because the instant that the American public knows what these agencies are doing, so does the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and all other organizations and countries who are our enemies. In the terms of the agencies this is called Operational-Security or simply OPSEC. Basically saying that people who need to know, will know, because in the frankest of terms people are horrid at safeguarding secrets, and when national security is at stake, the less people that know how they harvest their intelligence or who the inside sources are, the more success they will have in the protection of our nation and our allies. We do not need to know, nor should we want to know. We can rest easy at night knowing that these agencies are working non-stop to shut down attacks on our soil, and be thankful that we have these off the record programs to observe and hear everything. Simply put: do not worry. They are watching over us, and if you are not doing anything wrong, then you have no need to worry. R 27