My Preoccupation with the NSA Revelations

Trey Smith

I've been writing an awful lot about the NSA revelations in the past few weeks. For me, this is the most important scandal in recent memory. It strikes at the heart of freedom and democracy. It certainly goes against the basic precepts of philosophical Taoism.

While I am concerned with how this recently confirmed information impacts the basic fabric of society, these revelations may hit me harder than most. As someone who suffers from Schizotypal Personality Disorder, I already battle a degree of delusions and paranoia anyway. Now that I've learned that most of my phone calls and online activity are being tracked and/or monitored, it's made me even more paranoid than usual!

Look at it this way. I naturally tend to be suspicious of people and their motives. I go through periods in which I feel I'm being watched. In the past, I've been able to have a rational conversation with myself and point out that it's probably not true; it's just one of my run-of-the-mill delusions.

Now, however, I realize it may not be a delusion after all. Maybe people genuinely are watching me!

While it still may be paranoid to think that someone somewhere is keeping tabs on my every move -- not that I do much of anything anymore -- we now know that there ARE people tasked with keeping an eye out for dissidents and, if you read my posts, it is abundantly clear that I AM a dissident! I am a very low-level (not widely read) dissident, but these days we can never know how low the threshold is.

Not that this paranoia will stop me from writing the sort of things I write, but I do know my anxiety levels have been much higher lately. I'm going to see my counselor this afternoon and you can be sure my renewed paranoia will be the focus of our discussion.

But it still begs the question: If most of us are being surveilled to one degree or another, is it really paranoia to know this is happening?