“Mother should I trust the government”- Pink Floyd.  Isn’t that the real question, should the people of the United States of America trust their government?  A new poll found that Americans’ distrust of government is at its highest levels in history (The New York Times).  The people of the U.S. should not trust the government because the overall trust in the government is going down and we are constantly being watched and spied on without permission.

Evidence points that trust in the government has been at its lowest in history.  Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress (The New York Times).  A theory behind why more people are distrusting the government is because people now have a better understanding how the government works and are disappointed in some of their choices (The New York Times).  Many people, for example, agree on what the government should accomplish, like peace, security and economic growth. But they disagree on the steps to get there, like cutting taxes, enacting the draft or increasing airport security (The New York Times).  Nevertheless, not only the decline in overall government trust shows that U.S. citizens should not trust the government, and another reason is because the government is constantly watching us without permission. 

While it may be true that government trust is declining, it is not the only reason we should not not trust the government, another reason is “big brother” is always watching even without permission.  Big Brother is becoming more and more intrusive in our private lives and until something is done to scale it back or eliminate it, it's only going to get worse," says David Bakke, Money Crashers tech expert.  Some ways that the government watches us are by, reading your emails and text messages, snooping on your phone records, on public transportation, on the phone, while you watch TV, and while you are sitting at your computer.  Some evidence(s) to support these claims are, earlier this summer, it surfaced that the NSA had collected Verizon phone records from millions of unknowing Americans (Huffington Post), "Video cameras are permeating our public spaces," says Jay Stanley. "We've even seen some moves on buses to put microphones on them. We don't think that's legal.” and, "There is technology that's built-in to so-called 'smart' TVs, which would allow the cable company (or the government) to watch you through your television," says Bakke, It was also recently reported that the FBI can access your webcam in a remote fashion – they can turn it on if they want, as well.”   The #1 tip for protecting your privacy: put a piece of electrical or duct tape over your computer's camera when you're not using it.

Now some may argue that we should be faithful to the government because they want the same things as us; peace, security, and prosperity, but with the evidence showed we have no security.  According to a recent Wired article, the NSA has a specialized spy tool called GUMFISH that can commandeer cameras on "infected" computers to take photos and record conversations from unsuspecting citizens.  Does that really sound like security?
All in all, citizens of the U.S. should not trust their government because of security issues, and decline in trust.  89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress (The New York Times).  It was also recently reported that the FBI can access your webcam in a remote fashion – they can turn it on if they want, as well.  A way to help more people support the government again would to be to back off.  Supposedly we are the land of the free but are we really?