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Privacy versus security
Surveillance in america
Government surveillance
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After 9/11, many Americans accepted the fact that the Government and the National Security was taking an aggressive surveillance action to prevent another terrorist attack. However, what the Government and the National Security is doing is gathering as much information as they can to use it later against the same people they claim to protect. What type of information is the Government and National Security gathering? How is this mass surveillance, protecting the citizens of the United States? Is it worth giving up privacy for security that may not protect anyone after all?
Recently Edward Snowden a former National Security Agent (NSA) said that the reason he leaked government information was to warn the United State citizen of the danger they are facing from the government surveillance programs. According to Snowden, the NSA is gathering phone calls context and internet information on every American, storing this mass of information to use in the future to against the people they are supposed to protect. The government claims they had an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that allow them to collect metadata information from the Verizon telephone company, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others, to analyze the information for a possible threat to the United State. The problem with this is that the government collection of information of all Americans violates the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which protects Americans from intrusion to their private lives from the government.
In a recent article by Julian Sanchez a research fellow from Cato Institute said on a recent cyber attack on Google that, "The Google hackers appear to have been interested in … gathering information ...
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...but fear that the government who is suppose to protecting them will turn around and use this information against them in the future. It is important that the government come up with a solution to protect the privacy and security of all Americans with out violating the law.
Works Cited
McQuade, Samuel C. "government intelligence programs." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
"Securing our liberty." Commonweal 140.12 (2013): 5. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Sanchez, Julian. "Surveillance Can't Make Us Secure." The Nation (15 Feb. 2010). Rpt. in Civil Liberties. Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Watts, Tim J. "Edward Snowden." American Government. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
The United States has lived through an age of terrorism and the citizens have come to realize that they would rather ensure the safety of the masses than protect their privacy. Works Cited Cunningham, David. A. "The Patterning of Repression: FBI Counterintelligence and the New Left." Social Forces 82.1 (2003): 209–40. JSTOR.com - "The New York Times" Oxford Journals.
Richards, Neil M. "The Dangers Of Surveillance." Harvard Law Review 126.7 (2013): 1934-1965. Academic Search Elite. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.
With the introduction of the internet being a relatively new phenomenon, the act of cyber espionage is not something that has been properly acknowledged by society. The American Government has done a stand up job of keeping its methods in the shadows and away from the eyes of its people since its documented domestic surveillance began on October 4th, 2001; Twenty three days after the Twin Towers fell President George Bush signed an order to begin a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, an operation which was so sensitive that even many of the country's senior national security officials with the...
Since the terrorist attacks at Sept. 11, 2001, the surveillance issue often has turned away the table in the debate of individual privacy or counterterrorism. By passing the Patriot Act, Congress gave President Bush an immense law enforcement authority to boost U.S's counterterrorism, and the President used his enlarged powers to forward specific programs in order to reduce the threat of terrorism and defend the country’s safety.
Thomson, Peter M. "Patriot Act Surveillance Powers Protect Americans." Privacy. Ed. Jamuna Carroll. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "White Paper on the USA Patriot Act's 'Roving' Electronic Surveillance Amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Adam Penenberg’s “The Surveillance Society” reminds Americans of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and the instant effects the that attacks on the World Trade Center had on security in the United States. Penenberg discusses how the airports were shut down and federal officials began to plot a military response. Although those were necessary actions, they were not as long lasting as some of the other safety precautions that were taken. The Patriot Act, which makes it easier for the government to access cell phones and pagers and monitor email and web browsing, was proposed. Politicians agreed that during a war civil liberties are treated differently. From there, Penenberg explains that for years before September 11th, Americans were comfortable with cameras monitoring them doing everyday activities.
It is argued that the NSA metadata collection is supported by the Patriot Act in the light of national security. The information that is gathered is only skimmed through to look for key phrases and words to find terrorist activity and then discarded after five years. It is claimed that in this day and age we can not afford to be private and that there is always reasonable grounds for investigation for the sake of national security. The FISC agency also argues that, “the production of telephone service provider metadata is squarely controlled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Maryland" (Barnett, 2015). Because of this statement, the court as well as many other legal experts and commenters were convinced that the NSA data collection orders can be considered constitutional. All they collect is the very information in which Smith tells us that telephone consumers have no reasonable expectation of privacy (Barnett, 2015). There have been many federal court judges deciding all across the map that, no, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on you personal computer, smart phone and internet provider (Rumold,
Domestic Surveillance Citizens feeling protected in their own nation is a crucial factor for the development and advancement of that nation. The United States’ government has been able to provide this service for a small tax and for the most part it is money well spent. Due to events leading up to the terrifying attacks on September 11, 2001 and following these attacks, the Unites States’ government has begun enacting certain laws and regulations that ensure the safety of its citizens. From the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 to the most recent National Security Agency scandal, the government has attempted and for the most part succeeded in keeping domestic safety under control. Making sure that the balance between obtaining enough intelligence to protect the safety of the nation and the preservation of basic human rights is not extremely skewed, Congress has set forth requisites in FISA which aim to balance the conflicting goals of privacy and security; but the timeline preceding this act has been anything but honorable for the United States government.
Mass surveillance is a word that has been thrown around every so often in the last few decades, especially ever since George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although this book was released over 60 years ago, some aspects of the book are seeming to become true in the United States, and other parts of the world today. The idea of mass surveillance isn’t so taboo anymore, as there are several programs ran by sovereign countries around the world which monitor their domestic citizens, as well as citizens and leaders of other foreign countries. With all of our technological communication advances since 1949, this age of information is only going to get more severe, and more tracking and monitoring will be done. The biggest offender of doing this is the NSA, shortened for National Security Agency. The NSA is an organization that was made by the US Government to monitor intelligence, and collect, translate and decode information. What’s important about the NSA, is that this most recent summer, a program named PRISM was revealed by a whistleblower, and in summary, PRISM monitors everything it can, including our own citizens in the United States. This “scandal” had a lot of air time for many months, and is still in the news today. The revelation of what the NSA is doing behind our backs is what made the basis of this essay, and made me think of how similar this entire situation is to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The word “privacy” did not grow up with us throughout history, as it was already a cultural concept by our founding fathers. This term was later solidified in the nineteenth century, when the term “privacy” became a legal lexicon as Louis Brandeis (1890), former Supreme Court justice, wrote in a law review article, that, “privacy was the right to be let alone.” As previously mentioned in the introduction, the Supreme Court is the final authority on all issues between Privacy and Security. We started with the concept of our fore fathers that privacy was an agreed upon concept that became written into our legal vernacular. It is being proven that government access to individual information can intimidate the privacy that is at the very center of the association between the government and the population. The moral in...
Taylor, James Stacey. "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance." Public Affairs Quarterly July 2005: 227-246.
Love, Dylan. "The NSA Probably Gained Access To Google And Yahoo's Data By Tapping Their Cable." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.
Most people concerned about the privacy implications of government surveillance aren’t arguing for no[sic] surveillance and absolute privacy. They’d be fine giving up some privacy as long as appropriate controls, limitations, oversight and accountability mechanisms were in place. ”(“5 Myths about Privacy”). The fight for privacy rights is by no means a recent conflict.
There has always been surveillance of the general public conducted by the United States government, the usual justifications being upholding the security of the nation , weeding out those who intend to bring harm to the nation, and more. But the methods for acquiring such information on citizens of the united states were not very sophisticated many years ago so the impact of government surveillance was not as great. As a result of many technological advancements today the methods for acquiring personal information - phone metadata, internet history and more - have become much simpler and sophisticated. Many times, the information acquired from different individuals is done so without their consent or knowledge. The current surveillance of people
Gonchar, Michael. “What Is More Important: Our Privacy or National Security?” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.