I bet you thought this was about the government “trampling on the constitution and trying to take away our guns.” We have certainly heard enough from the gun lobby, lead by the NRA with LaPierre’s face out front to remind us daily of this bogus loss of freedom, while right under our very eyes, aided by us every day, the real, oppressive, 1984-esque trampling is going on. We have already given away our freedom, and with much more serious implications than any gun legislations would ever have.

Were you as astonished as I was how quickly the Boston bombers were found? It looks like there were thousands of pictures and videos of them that came out after they were identified. Once they were on national TV and the Internet, the noose closed very quickly around them.

I have read a transcript of a conversation between Erin Burnett, the CNN host of Outfront, and several other people, one of them Tim Clemente, former FBI counter- terrorism expert.

In the investigation after the Bombing in Boston, Catherine Russell, the widow of Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, spoke to her husband on April 18, after his picture was released by the FBI. Did she know he was the terrorist at that time? If yes, she didn’t report him, and that makes her guilty of aiding terrorism. Further, how could she, living with the bomber in a very small apartment, not know about the plot ahead of time? If she did, she is in even more trouble.

Here is the exchange that bothers me terribly:

BURNETT:  Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It’s not a voice mail.  It’s just a conversation.  There’s no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE:  No, there is a way.  We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation.  It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her.  We certainly can find that out.

Is it just me, or did Clemente just tell us that all our phone calls are being recorded?

Let’s face it, with digital technology permeating our lives, it’s trivial for Verizon or AT&T, or any other phone company to record that call and save it off. Not just the call, by our texts, everything we search online, all is going through the same tight funnel of the phone companies. If the government simply taps into this, it can know everything we do, we communicate, we say, we opine, we search for at any time for any reason.

You didn’t think about this going on when you texted someone this morning? You didn’t think about this when you made the last phone call, at work or at home?

Right, I didn’t either.

Everything we communicate using our smart phones is apparently being recorded – and of course nobody is telling us about this.

Call me paranoid?

No – call me an unfree citizen. Background checks for guns seem a ridiculous trifle in comparison.