Why Wiretapping Is Bad

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Recommended: Ethical aspects of electronic surveillance

“Almost 84 percent of all wiretaps in the US are used for drug-related conspiracies.” (Ambinder) Wiretapping can be proven to be a very valuable asset for law enforcement to use. But the US government should only be able to wiretap potential criminals or terrorists. Once that’s in place it’ll help prevent more crimes and it’ll also help to ensure that the government doesn’t abuse the power of wiretapping.
To first understand why we should have government wiretapping, we need to understand how wiretapping works and why it happens. According to Lee Adams, “Wiretapping first became a tool of U.S law enforcement in the 1890’s, but the Supreme Court didn’t establish its constitutionality until 1928, at the height of Prohibition.” (Adams) They would …show more content…

There is sufficient evidence to prove this claim. According to General Keith Alexander, “He testified today: ‘In recent years, these programs, together with other intelligence, have protected the U.S and our allies from terrorist threats across the globe to include helping prevent the potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11" (Parkinson). This quote was from Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency. In 2012, an Afghan-born man named Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to plotting a terror attack on the NYC subway station, which was foiled. The NSA claims they used telephone data and internet information to track down the potential terrorist and many …show more content…

Clearly, wiretapping should only be used on probable criminals and terrorists. According to Wiretap Report 2016, “ Drug offenses were the most prevalent type of criminal offenses investigated using reported wiretaps… Conspiracy, the second-most frequently cited crime… Homicide, the third-largest category.” (Wiretap Report 2016) This shows all types of wiretapping mainly targets criminal and terrorist activities, but the government sometimes goes unchecked and get warrantless wiretaps, which is why we need a better-enforced system to prevent these wiretaps from happening. According to Kravets, “In 2001, the DoJ issued only 5,683 reported "original orders." Fast forward to 2011, the latest year for which data is available, the number skyrocketed to 37,616 – a more than sixfold increase.”(Kravets) They use these to track our email, to get information on our phone calls and text messages. As Americans, we shouldn’t allow the government to illegally wiretap us because there is a process they have to go through in order to get a warrant legally. And if they don’t go through that process, then we won’t know who they are actually spying

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