The Unethical Era of Government Surveillance The Government 's domestic surveillance programs post 9/11 completely infringe on our rights as American citizens, create a mistrust toward government, and aren 't nearly as effective as they claim to be. Surveillance is defined as the observation or monitoring of a person. The government is observing and monitoring to the extreme which is causing an unethical era of surveilling. The government has been using this tool of surveillance to an invasive amount after the tragedy of September 11,2001. Our Country was built on the idea of liberty, and the government is fully jeopardizing this liberty. One of the most important drawbacks of domestic surveillance is that is violates our human …show more content…
The patriot act as well as several other laws would achieve national surveillance while also going against Americas core principles. The founding fathers of the American nation fought to create these rights as foundations for all Americans. One of the main ways an Americans can feel completely free and liberal is through privacy. Privacy is a simple luxury that every citizen should be allowed to obtain. Unfortunately, privacy and government surveillance programs cannot coexist . The Brennan Center for Justice fact sheet states that, "Since 2006, the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans from some of the largest telecommunications providers in the United States. The NSA has been collecting records of who called whom, when, and for how long." (1) The fourth amendment clearly states that the government must have probable cause or individualized suspicion before …show more content…
However, the extreme invasion of our rights makes us distrusting and skeptical of our own body of government. Extreme mistrust towards our own government system is another huge disadvantage of government surveillance programs. People will only trust an authority figure to the extent that this authority figure trusts them in return. According to the guardian on government surveillance and trusting the government, "The moment it becomes clear that they are in fact trading their own liberty, the social contract is broken. Violating this trust changes the definition of "us" an "them" in a way that can be dangerous for a democratic authority- suddenly, most of the population stands in opposition to their own government." (source) When people discover the extent of liberty they are giving up to the government, they realize that it is no longer the government and the governed standing together. It is instead two separate groups of people being mistrustful of each other. According to Scott Rasmussen, "Merely 30 percent of voters nationwide have much trust in government officials when it comes to their surveillance efforts. It has also been shown that only 24 percent of voters are confident that the federal government does the right thing most of the time." (realclearpolitics) It is extremely disarming that the government that is supposed to be protecting us is actually inducing more fear
The aftereffects of the September 11, 2001 attacks led to Congress passing sweeping legislation to improve the United States’ counterterrorism efforts. An example of a policy passed was Domestic Surveillance, which is the act of the government spying on citizens. This is an important issue because many people believe that Domestic Surveillance is unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy, while others believe that the government should do whatever is possible in order to keep the citizens safe. One act of Domestic Surveillance, the tracking of our phone calls, is constitutional because it helps fight terrorism, warns us against potential threats, and gives US citizens a feeling of security.
The NSA and U.S. government sifting through our private information is but a small inconvenience that we must sacrifice in order to protect our own freedom and safety. Domestic Surveillance roots back to the 1910’s, where the assassination of President McKinley, created a Bureau of Investigation that would trace the efforts of the Communists attempting an uprising in America. This would be the foundings behind Domestic Surveillance in America, and would continue on after World War II where the government created the NSA and CIA, with the main purposes
We only have one life to live on this earth, and it should be our lives to live privately and freely. With so much surveillance, can we actually say that there is not a cost of freedom? Clearly, people need open their eyes and see mass surveillance is hindering out ability to see threats, and by the time we do it is too late. Something needs to be done, because innocent Americans should not be monitored everyday when the people who are a threat seem to be over looked. That is the most dangerous thing of all, not being able shift through the muck of useless information, while enemies could be planning something big. We Americans, have the right to be protected and not to be treated like a threat by our own government.
We face the same conflict today, almost fifty years later. Our government uses all kinds of surveillance to keep track of its citizens, from satellites in space to cameras mounted on telephone poles. Although it's highly unlikely that total privacy has been taken from us, the concept is possible. When Orwell wrote 1984, he wrote of a foreign idea, not realizing that we are experiencing excerpts of his book in 1999. It's almost sad, in a way, that our government has taken a piece of one man's imagination and applied it to everyday life. Who's Big Brother now?
The twenty first century in the century of technology, where technology is heavily used in the people daily lives. One of the field where technology is being utilized in is monitoring people through cameras and phone calls. Although it might be interfering with people privacy, but it has its advantages that might outweigh the disadvantages. This essay will discuss both points of view, and try to decide which one is more reasonable than the other.
With today’s technological surveillance capabilities, our actions are observable, recordable and traceable. Surveillance is more intrusive than it has been in the past. For numerous years countries such as the United State and the United Kingdom have been actively monitoring their citizens through the use of surveillance technology. This state surveillance has been increasing with each passing year, consequently invading the citizen’s fundamental constitutional right to privacy,. This has lead to the ethical issues from the use or misuse of technology, one such ethical issue is should a government have the right to use technology to monitor its citizens without their knowledge or approval? For this reason this paper will examine what the terms ethics, ethical issue and state surveillance refer to. Next, an exploration into the ethics of governmental monitoring from the perspective of a variety of ethical systems such as: ethical formalism, act utilitarian, rule utilitarian and subjective relativism model. From this examination of state surveillance through ethical syste...
Domestic Surveillance: Is domestic surveillance worth the hassle? In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the American people that the National Security Agency had been spying on them. Not only that, but also on world leaders. Domestic surveillance is understood as the first line of defense against terrorism, but it has many downsides, not only it violates Americans lives, also it spies on our social media, it puts a fine line on their privacy, and it is a big stab at the freedom of speech. According to John W. Whitehead, “The fact that the government can now, at any time, access entire phone conversations, e-mail exchanges, and other communications from months or years past should frighten every American.”
Whether the U.S. government should strongly keep monitoring U.S. citizens or not still is a long and fierce dispute. Recently, the debate became more brutal when technology, an indispensable tool for modern live, has been used by the law enforcement and national security officials to spy into American people’s domestic.
...vil rights and losing protection. Protection is more important but unnecessary spying should not be tolerated. “The sad truth is that most Americans have already lost the battle when it comes to keeping personal information absolutely private.”( Lee, M.Dilascio, Tracey M.4).
Privacy is central to our understanding of freedom of expression and thus on a larger scale democracy. Mass surveillance is an invasion of common man’s privacy. Recent development in the way in which technology can invade privacy has heightened the need for greater protection freedom of expression. However, a major problem in this area is that the public are not provided with adequate information to act against such invasion of their rights. To date, there has been little agreement to what extent mass surveillance should be allowed in the name of providing security to the citizen of the country and to what extent privacy of the citizens of other countries should be respected.
Throughout many years in the United States, there has been controversy over whether or not government surveillance and other technology is a violation of human rights. Ever since the publication of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, there has been an increase in debates on the subject. The novel itself exemplifies what a surveillance-based society is like, providing the reader with a point of view of what could happen to their own society. Discussion over the usage of information that the government has gathered has become one of the foremost topics being analyzed to this day. The information that is being viewed by surveillance would otherwise be private, or information that people would not want to be leaked out. Therefore, surveillance executed by the government and companies has become an infringement to the right of privacy, and United States citizens should take actions upon it before the world reflects the Orwellian vision of the future.
It transcends the line between public and private identity. When all of someone 's private information is being watched, then who are they as a person? Citizens cannot allow their identity to be confiscated for the protection of the unknown. Tamara Thompson states in her article Overview: What is Domestic Surveillance? that, the NSA has constructed a program that lets it hijack almost anything. Using this skill, most American 's information is automatically taken in, without a purpose. What is America 's deepest and darkest secret? Because what might be a secret, will be known to someone. With the hindsight of constantly being over watched, then how can America freely do what they please? Insecurities will consume the mind with the thought that the NSA, or someone like it is watching us. Not only is it hurting America emotionally, but it is hurting America physically with the economy. These government agencies are making numerous unnecessary purchases every day with the attempt at securing our homeland. Why is it necessary to live in constant paranoia if the majority of America is doing nothing wrong? There are other ways to stop terrorism, and spying on the public is not one of them. Domestic surveillance is not necessary by any
... individuals, but just as means to an end. Utilitarianism on the other hand state surveillance is ethical since the protection of citizens outweigh that of privacy. From the natural law, social contract standpoint mass surveillance is unethical and a violation of our social contract especially the right to privacy. Relativism have an effect on property crime, but not on incidences of violence. While others are of the view that surveillance does have befits, the unrestrained use of state surveillance has lead to the suppression press freedom. Ethical relativism if there is not a terrorist attack or the rule fails to prevent an attack, then the rule leads to a lot of negative results as the privacy of the citizens of the United States have been violated for no gain in protection. And determining which of these cases will occur in the future is difficult to determine.
Ultimately, however, surveillance is only a tool that can be used both ethically and unethically. Employee monitoring, consumer data collection, and government surveillance provides great benefits, including improving company efficiency, providing commercial and health values, and protecting the nation from threats. However, when considering the extent to which surveillance can be done, the rights of the people affected must be taken into account. Finding the right balance between these two views is the key to maximizing the benefits of everyone involved.
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