The End of an Era

This semester I can honestly say that I now know more people are watching us then i ever thought. We have explored a variety of topics this semester from, online social networking, to intellectual property rights, and private companies collecting data on us like TIA or the Matrix. It was really interesting to see how the private technology sector has been pushed in such a way to make technology for snooping . The people told the government that it was not allowed to spy on us so the answer was to outsource the job to the private sector. This on reflection does make me a bit uneasy because it seems that the government, that is supposed to represent the peoples' will, just bypassed it with their decision to turn the job over to private entrepreneurs. Is this a way out of the checks and balances system that the founders simply couldn't foresee?
The lectures were interesting, except for the one that told me that I was wasting my money by going to a liberal arts institution rather than a more career focused school. "Don't Taze Me Bro" was something i had never seen before so this class also introduced me that and many other funny videos.
Having us blog for a grade was also an interesting practice that I had not experienced before. I enjoyed it as it allowed me to spend more time reading news stories instead of doing my other work.

All in all this was a great class and anyone would do well to take it simply for their own general knowledge in how technology and politics are playing together in this modern age.