Reclaiming Your Conversations

Some people are claiming outrage that the U.S. government is intercepting all of their email, phone calls, texts, and every other electronic record about them. On the surface, this seems like grand hypocrisy for a nation that was founded on honoring freedom and limitations intended to prevent intrusive government.

However, we must not forget that the government always serves the will of the people, and therefore there is no reason to fear the government or consider them an enemy. Government is merely a force to be put to practical use. It is to the citizen's great advantage that the government has been storing all email and phone calls for the last decade. The 53% of citizens that pay income tax fund government efforts such as their archive service, a larger and more useful version of similar corporate services like Dropbox and Mega.

As the funders of the government archive and creators of the content being archived, we also have the right to have it made available to us as needed. A simple FOIA request will return lost email and the saved audio of wonderful conversations we once thought had gone missing in the moment.

We can now have those special interactions recalled for us, and with them the memories that had grown dim with specifics mostly forgotten. There are some gems in there we will be able to enjoy again, and this time get to keep.

Reassuringly, the principle of government remains sound. The government is our collective servant and must perform what those paying the bills decide should be done. We should be thankful and appreciative that government is useful in its ability to give us back so many conversations we thought had been lost to time.