Today's Opinions

The revelation last week that the U.S. government is collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans and that it also secured a secret court order allowing the National Security Agency and FBI to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. internet companies, including Google and Facebook, is troubling.

President Obama and others defend the programs, calling them a necessary defense against terrorism. Privacy advocates are up in arms, arguing that the government shouldn’t be spying on its citizens without probable cause.

Even as a child, I looked forward to the warm days of summer. I wasn’t a sedentary child by choice, but a bout with rheumatic fever at about age 6, left me a bit fragile and caused me to be homebound for better than half of my second grade year of school.