An Unforgettable Week in the Big Apple

Last week was quite a whirlwind. Amidst the baseball games, the great food, and the many rides on the subway, I was with a group, pouring love and energy into the lives of kids at the Brooklyn Tabernacle.

I was privileged to be working to with a group of kids 12 and older. At the same time, I was pretty nervous going into the week. I wasn't sure exactly what I would tell the kids, and I am always worried trying to talk on the spot. It was something I was praying for in the months leading up to the trip.

It turned out that my answer was twofold. I think it took me until about Tuesday to realize the first part. SpreadTruth developed an app, called Questions in a Box. In the app, there are a couple of categories. Some for acquaintances, some for best friends. On Tuesday, I pulled it out after the group lesson. I still had about ten minutes to fill before games, and I was completely out of ideas of things to talk about. I pulled out the app, and it offered me the question, "If you had one wish, what would it be?" One girl thought for a long time as we went around the rest of the group. When I went back to her, her answer was well though out. "I wish my sister didn't need surgery," she told us.

I took that opportunity to reiterate to her that God cares about her and her sister, and that He would be watching over it. Then we prayed together. The surgery is on August 7th, and I'll be praying about it until then.

The second, but perhaps larger part of my answer to prayer was Deana. She was my co-leader for the week, and was a huge blessing to me and the kids. Just about as soon as I walked one of the boys to the bathroom, the girls would start talking to her. It was truly a blessing having someone who could interact with the girls one personally than I could.

The week was an enormous learning experience. Wednesday was hard, as I sat with my head down and heard probably a dozen kids say that they were worried about something out of their control. I had to hold back tears hearing about these twelve year olds who were worried about stuff they shouldn't be worried about for a long time.

Still, in a broken world, there is hope. I got to see God work in the lives of three of my kids as they made decisions to follow Christ at the end of the week.

I'll be praying for them, and for God's work in their lives. I loved the week I had there, made some amazing friends, and I can't wait to go back next year.

Here's the recap video for the week:

Nathan

The Internet through a Prism

Image courtesy of Klara on Flickr

I'm not the kind of person who gets too worked up about privacy.  I keep a public Twitter and Google+ page, and have considered doing the same with my Facebook.  I do, however, think that government surveillance is going to far if what we've seen about Prism is true.

A slide leaked by an anonymous source to the Guardian and The Washington Post claims Prism is a program within the United States National Security Agency (NSA) under which the U.S. Government supposedly has direct access to the information stored by some of the biggest technology companies in the world.  These companies include Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Skype, YouTube, AOL and PalTalk.  While all of the companies have denied that the U.S. Government has direct access to their servers, the White House has a different statement on the matter, acknowledging the act but denying that it targets U.S. citizens:

The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any U.S. citizen or of any person located within the United States.
The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.
This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.
Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.
The Government may only use Section 702 to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target.

Things get even more complicated, because there is indication that the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has had access to the data since June 2010.  While Larry Page, CEO of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, have both made personal statements denying any form of participation in the program, there's still a lot that is unclear.

I think that it's important not to ignore this, however, I also recognize the practicalities of the situation.  I have an account on eight of the nine services listed on the slides and while I'm not going to sit here and claim that I'm going to get up and leave if this is true, and quit Google or Facebook, I think we have a right to request transparency from the government and from these companies on matters of our personal information.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is proposing an amendment that would put an end to this, but barring that,  Google has a transparency dashboard where they outline government requests for information, as well as whether or not they comply with those requests, but just yesterday added National Security Letters to that dashboard in the light of this story.  Finally, I'd like echo Larry's call for more transparency, so that we can have the freedom that this country was founded for:

Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed—there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.

Further reading:
Lifehacker: What the NSA Spying Scandal Means for You
The Guardian: Facebook and Google insist they did not know of Prism surveillance program
The Atlantic: Could This Be How PRISM Technically Works?