This weekend it was announced that the Islamic
Republic of Iran came to a - what is being described as historic -
deal
with the United States and five other world powers from Europe and
Asia. It was also revealed on November 24 that Iran and the United
States have been having
secretive meetings in Oman
and in rooms at the United Nations building in New York City after the
U.N General Assembly, possibly explaining how the deal seemingly came
to be agreed to so quickly.
Currently it is known that the deal includes around $7 Billion in aid
to Iran from the world powers to help improve the economy of Iran,
which was hard hit by the imposed sanctions of the last several months,
as well as an agreement from Iran that they will dial back or freeze
all nuclear enrichment and not continue the installation of new
centrifuges. Finally, the deal requires Iran to permit foreign
inspectors to conduct analysis of the nuclear facilities at any time to
guarantee that Iran is staying commited to the deal.
 |
| Secretary of State John Kerry was present for negotiations in Geneva this weekend. |
In my opinion, this is not a very good deal. With
the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who has called for the
destruction and death of Israel, controlling the country, this deal
does not scale back Iran's nuclear effort enough. Sanctions should have
continued until Iran promised to end all nuclear enrichment. Several
countries in the Middle East do not feel comfortable with Iran having
nuclear weapons capabilities, which could result in greater turbulence
in the region than what is already present with the coup d' etat in
Egypt, civil war in Syria, and attempted stabilizing of Libya after
their revolution. Israel is already
reportedly looking at Saudi Arabian military bases to utilize in the event of a strike by Israel on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites.
NSA Spying
The gathering of data by the National Security
Agencey (NSA) has been widely covered for its listening in on phone
calls of foreign heads of state, hacking into Facebook profiles and
messages, collecting phone call data of millions of individuals without
cause - and even snooping into employees' love interests' lives. All of
this is just wrong and unconstitutional. According to the fourth
amendment, people have "the right to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches." I would
argue that the collection of millions of people's phone call data per
month is a direct violation of this. I don't care if the Patriot Act
gave them the green light for this, as the Patriot Act is more or less
the suspension of the US Constitution. The US Constitution does not get
killed by laws, it kills laws and acts of the government, and is the
very reason why I feel the United States needs to abolish the NSA, or
severely cut back on its rights and capabilities.
 | NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland |