Throughout the history, the American government preserved the privacy rights of the people 's privacy by the fourth amendment of the constitution. However, after 9/11 everything has changed. National Security Agency started national surveillance on possibly every internet connection.
According to Schneier (2015), US government has started spying on American citizens since the 60 's; however, their targets were antiwar activists, civil rights leaders and members of nonviolent dissident political groups. Furthermore, starting from the last decade NSA focused mainly in American Muslims in it 's goal to fight Alqaeda overseas. Also, Schneier (2015) indicated, that instead of focusing only one one citizens category, NSA decided to gather information
…show more content…
The main purpose of the 4th amendment was to safeguard people 's freedom and privacy; it states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue”(U.S. Const. amend. IV). Since the independence, US government tried to ensure the best for it 's people by legislating the laws that serve the citizens in the first place. One of the rights that the US constitution upholds is the right of freedom of speech. The US always had a free press and free media; this includes journalists and normal people. The fourth amendment of the US constitution stated literally that by law people are allowed to express themselves freely without the fear of being arrested. However, the 4th amendment is not a pretext to criminalize, especially in the web. The 4th amendment is not securing peoples rights only, but also it govern them; a part of the amendment is that people can be searched and seized only by an issues warrants. Petrashek(2010) emphasize that “Ordinarily, a search is reasonable only if police obtain a warrant prior to intruding upon the individual 's
The 4th amendment provides citizens protections from unreasonable searches and seizures from law enforcement. Search and seizure cases are governed by the 4th amendment and case law. The United States Supreme Court has crafted exceptions to the 4th amendment where law enforcement would ordinarily need to get a warrant to conduct a search. One of the exceptions to the warrant requirement falls under vehicle stops. Law enforcement can search a vehicle incident to an individual’s arrest if the individual unsecured by the police and is in reaching distance of the passenger compartment. Disjunctive to the first exception a warrantless search can be conducted if there is reasonable belief
On December 15, 1791 the Bill of Rights was ratified to limit the government 's power, but no one could have predicted how the world would change and how the amendments would be tested. Since the Bill of Rights was written the world has changed drastically. With advances in technology, that the founders of the constitution could have never predicted, many of the amendments are not applied in the same ways as they were when they were written. The Fourth Amendment in particular has changed very much. The modern forms of communication have tested the Fourth Amendment and the government 's responses. Since the Bill of Rights was ratified, there has been constant change in the world and therefore all the amendments have been tested and questioned.
“The Fourth Amendment wasn't written for people with nothing to hide any more than the First Amendment was written for people with nothing to say.” (Dave Krueger). The Fourth Amendment protects the people's values, including the right of privacy. The Fourth Amendment includes, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, paper, effects, against unreasonable searches and seizure, shall not be violated.” When the founding fathers created the Constitution they ensured the people fundamental laws that would be used to any issue portrayed in the Supreme Court. That gave the people a relief that no one is ever above the law that is created. The privacy of the people was a very big value enforced by warrants. In the case of the
In 1787, the Constitution, created by a group of men known as the “Framers”, is the highest law in the United States. At first, the Constitution was not ratify because it did not have a bill of rights which is a list of rights that belong to the people. Therefore to allow changes to the Constitution, the Framers created the amendment process. In 1791, congress proposed twelve changes to the Constitution. Ten of the twelve changes were agreed to by the states and were called “The Bill of Rights.” Some of these rights include the right of free speech, the right to practice your own religion and the right to be silent if you are arrested.
It is a common known fact that the Bill of Rights serve as a type of contract between the government and the people that outlines the specific rights that each individual is entailed and the government cannot revoke those rights. The Fourth Amendment protects those accused of a crime by preventing officials from searching the home, property, or body of the accused without a valid reason or a search warrant. Despite being a crucial amendment in terms of the privacy and personal protection of an individual, the history behind the conception of the amendment and the history of the amendment in the modern day is not known to a majority of the American population.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” –U.S. Constitutional Amendments
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.
The NSA has been secretly ordered to eavesdrop by the Bush administration after the 9/11 terrorist attack. The base of where the NSA has been operating their wiretapping agenda is in Bluff Dale, Utah the building sprawls 1,500,000 square feet and possess the capacity to hold as much as five zeta bytes of data it has cost almost $2,000,000,000. The act of spying over the USA citizens even though they are suspicious is a threat to the people’s privacy and the privacy of other countries’ members are being infringed on by the NSA by the act of wiretapping. The action of wiretapping violates laws for privacy, like the Bill of Right’s Amendment Four which says “Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions”. The wiretapping controversy has caused the panic and hysteria of the citizens of the USA and USA’s allies. This panic and hysteria has troubled the government by resulting to mistrust and concern against them by both groups. The panic effect of the NSA wiretapping has caused many people such as journalist to have their freedom of speech to be restricted in fear of the NSA to stamp them as terrorist and according to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights that is an infringement of the people’s right of freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief.
Many Americans feel the right to privacy is within the Constitution that the founding fathers wrote. This has not always been the case. Many scholars have claimed that the authors of Constitution protected the right to privacy within the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court initially acknowledged protection under the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause for personal privacy and freedom from government intrusions into marriage, reproduction, and child rearing in the 1920’s, during the Lochner era (Obrien 2011). They then went on to explore the idea further.
It is a well-distinguished fact that the government loves using surveillance – a surveillance’s easy accessibility, regardless of the threat they pose, verifies the government’s love. Surveillance is a part of the government’s life. According to ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, the government passed quite a lot of legislative acts, such as the USA/Patriot Act, that would allow the government to watch doubtful actions. The act was a revision of the nation's surveillance laws that allowed the government's authority to spy on the citizens. The Patriot Act made it easier for the system to gain access to records of citizens' actions being held by a third party. Similarly, Section 215 of the Patriot Act allowed the FBI to force many people - including doctors, libraries, bookstores, universities, and Internet service providers - to turn in information on their clients (“Surveillance Under the USA PATRIOT Act”).
Although a right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has established that it is inherently protected by the Constitution. Explain the numerous ways that the Lacks family’s right to privacy was violated. Discuss the importance of the right to privacy. How has this right evolved over the course of American history? How is it being challenged by emergent technologies? How have groups of people such as African Americans, women, children, and most recently, immigrants, fought for legislation protecting their right to privacy? Cite specific court cases and/or current events.
Many people throughout the world do not realize how their right to privacy is at risk and the need to understand that it is very important, more than they think. Most people in society do not realize that it is a bigger issue than what it sounds to be. As many of you may know the 14th amendment has been involved in many cases that had to do with the right to privacy. This amendment to the constitution guarantees us the right to privacy, but what does this mean? This paper is an attempt to show how the right to privacy is applied in public, in the workplace and in the home.
The Bill of Rights are the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights works to provide constitutional protection for the individual and to limit government power. The First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment protects the individual by allowing religious and political freedom, and by promising a public and speedy trial. The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy and limits the reach of the government into people’s homes and personal belongings. The three essential Amendments from the Bill of Rights are: the First Amendment- Religious and Political freedom: the Fourth Amendment- Search and Seizure: and the Sixth Amendment-Criminal Court Procedures.
The government gives each American citizen a set of unalienable rights that protect them from the government’s power. These rights cannot be broken, yet the government violates the Fourth Amendment daily to find ways to spy on the American public under the guise of protecting against terrorism. In 2007 President Obama said the American administration “acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our securities – it is not.” Americans need to understand that their privacy is worth the fight. The people need to tell their neighbors, their congressmen, and their senators that they will not allow their internet privacy to be violated by needless spying. American citizens deserve the rights given to them and need to fight for the right to keep them by changing privacy laws to include Internet privacy.
Americans’ personal privacy is being to be ruined by the rise of four different types of surveillance system. The four are: federal government agencies; state and local law enforcement entities; telecoms, web sites and Internet “apps” companies; and private data aggregators .The right to privacy is not derived from any source; however the Declaration of Human Rights states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon his honor or reputation"(Stone 348). The right to protection is also secured by the Privacy Act of 1974 and found through the in the first, fourth and fifth amendments of the United States Constitution.