Since the beginning of human civilization, people have been in conflict with their governments. So, since the beginning of time, governments have found ways to control the populous.

Luckily for us, the greatest right of every American citizen is the right to be free. But when our government decides to tactfully eliminate or conveniently forget all the rights as stated in our Bill of Rights, our freedoms are at stake.

When people rationalize the unjust actions of a government, they are negating their own right to freedom, as well as others’ rights to freedom.

So when reading The BG News column by Jason Snead, “They might be watching you, but that’s not such a bad thing,” on Wednesday, I grew very concerned with the potential sentiment of college students today.

Today, when government surveillance or any tyrannical government action reaches you, it reaches your home, your social life, your job, your place of worship. But the wrong in losing freedom isn’t in what you lose materialistically – these things only physically represent what’s important – it’s in losing the thing in you that makes you human, that very complex fabric of human essence created from continuing experiences.

Take, for instance, the choice to experience a protest, a very important experience in an American’s life – you get to actively express your ideologies in hopes of creating a change.

Let’s say you’re a 23-year-old college student protesting at a convention. There are people alongside you, screaming various chants and holding up specific banners – all in a manner that doesn’t destroy property or harm others. You and a group of people around you are arrested for disorderly conduct – a very vague charge – and are sent to a temporary holding facility.

This facility is a gigantic bus garage. As you look around, you see pens with 30 to 40 people being held, some are cuffed to each other in long lines. Someone is cuffed to you and you see it’s a 15-year-old girl crying because she was arrested on her way to the movies. Throughout the next 57 hours, you are held in this bus pier until you are finally released when a judge threatens to fine the city for every hour a prisoner is held over.

This event was reported in the Village Voice and actually happened at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Along with this incident were many similar ones. Protesters were only allowed a small gated area, titled a “free speech zone,” to protest. Within this zone, there were a large number of police officers and surveillance listening devices set up. Camera men positioned atop buildings took pictures of the protesters. Unfortunately, this also happened at the Democratic National Convention in Boston that same year.

The government has a lot of power. We know that because we gave it to them through the social contract. But things are no longer as simple as they were in the days when our government was being created. It is much more intricate now. Enemies are harder to distinguish, attacks are more inhumane.

But this social contract is bunk if we don’t demand, or force, the government to abide by it. We lose our humanity if we lose our ability to live freely and responsibly.

Feeling safe is a good thing. We need to not fear life or else we cannot experience it to its full capacity. But the question that lies here is: When does our lust for feeling safe actually contradict the reason why we wanted to be safe in the first place? At what point does safe negate free?

You can only feel safe to a certain extent if you believe yourself to be free: Like it or not, the world is full of uncertainty. So, stop oppressing yourselves and, even more importantly, stop letting our government get away with it, because though the government may not be using it to its advantage, it definitely has the ability to do whatever it will.

Snead wrote: “Currently those who are subject to domestic surveillance are those that, in some manner, indicated they may be linked to terrorism.”

“Indicated that they may be linked to terrorism” is a vague reason as to why I have the potential to be watched, arrested and held for as long as they would like to hold me (because the writ of habeas corpus as been suspended indefinitely).

The truth is the government flexes its muscles, all the time abusing its power upon the citizens of this country and making the word “freedom” into blasphemous slander. Maybe the government does need enemies, and I don’t mean ones like the attackers of the World Trade Center. Maybe we should be our own government’s enemies.

If this were the case, an enemy of the state would certainly be a friend to me.