blakewhiteside23

[blakewhiteside23]

NSA Wiretapping PSA

The public service announcement that I chose to analyze is entitled NSA Wiretapping PSA. This video features Trevor Moore from “Whitest Kids U’Know” tells us what we can do about the NSA wiretapping our phones. The NSA has done this through data mining our IP addresses, and tapping all Verizon and AT&T cell phones with the hope of fighting terrorism.

As far as premise is concerned the setting for this announcement is the United States, and the market that advertisers are trying to reach is anyone with a cell phone with Verizon or AT&T as its service provider. Characters used within the PSA are Barak Obama, Hilary Clinton, and two other democrats which are used to show that our politicians will do nothing to solve this problem.

The conflict is presented within the first few seconds of the PSA, and is shown in the title, which is the use of phone taps and data mining to try and find terrorists within the United States. The aspects of this PSA are used well, and although it is a comedic context that gives a humorous and unethical solution to the problem, the overall point is made.

Regardless of context it isn’t hard to see that this is an issue that takes away the general privacy of society, and since our culture enjoys humor over seriousness this was a good way of presenting this information. Giving a logical solution to this problem would have been nice, but given since this is a government organization that’s implementing this it is hard for this blogger to think of one.

  < http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba0cc80eec/nsa-wiretapping-public-service-announcement>

[blakewhiteside23]

U.S. Involvement in Syria

U.S. Involvement in Syria

Being one of the world superpowers it seems that the United States sticks its nose into any conflict that involves civil war, or weapons of mass destruction.

I agree that for the wellbeing of my fellow citizens the U.S. should get information on anything that could impact our lives or compromise our safety, but at what point do we sit back and let a country figure out its own problems.

At this time in history it seems this is impossible, but what if the every choice had its own destructive consequences. It seems that each decision would have an outcome that would cause more death, and less of a chance for peace.

The Syrian civil war has been going on for a couple years now, but this is the first time the U.S. has debated on an attack to respond to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad (Fisher).

This is a very delicate situation because of all the players involved in the game. Russia has connections with Syria, and the Russian voice in the UN is what took them out of the equation (Fisher).

Although I agree something must be done to make sure chemical weapons don’t become a norm in war, I don’t think World War III is worth slapping Assad on the wrist with a semi-meaningless air strike that wouldn’t alter the Syrian governments military strategy.

In Assad’s opinion, a military strike would only help Al-Qaeda who is trying to take control of Syria in the midst of this civil war (CBS). This is not a farfetched idea, and helping people we were just at war with seems unthinkable. The easy way to say this is the U.S. is in a pickle.

  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57601934/assad-says-any-u.s-strike-on-syria-is-going-to-support-al-qaeda/

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/