It's no longer a secret that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been illegally collecting the phone call records of millions of Americans. Still, the American public has yet to react to this major scandal, signifying it is still not widely known how this spying is putting the United States in danger.

I highly recommend you read the commentary by former NSA analyst Ira Winkler. He points out several important ideas to consider:

• The NSA's warrantless spying is illegal
• It provides useless information
• It takes law enforcement agents away from investigating and preventing crimes actually being committed
• It erodes civil liberties
• We have no clue how bad it really is

Hopefully, you're as concerned as I am about the whittling down of privacy rights protected by the Fourth Amendment, under the guise of terrorism protection, and of potential breaches to personal security, like those now surrounding millions of veterans.

If you want to express your outrage at the major loss of personal privacy spurred by the NSA, you can let your congressman know about it.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving your privacy, has set up a form to do so. If you live in the United States it allows you to let your congressman know that you don't want them to "rubberstamp these wiretaps" that abrogate your constitutional freedoms.