Example Of Argumentative Essay On Edward Snowden

801 Words4 Pages

" Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor who leaked the details of mass surveillance practices, once asserted that “suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%.” Snowden highlights one of the main issues of mass surveillance; it treats everyone like a criminal. Regardless of a person’s criminal record, the NSA always views the individual as a potential terrorist. This approach to surveillance is harmful to the building blocks of democracy since democracy is built upon the free opinions of the people. Without the privacy to foster free opinions, movements, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, could never flourish to fight systemic racism and sexism present in our society. Due to the importance privacy merits our society, the government, at any level, should not …show more content…

While government surveillance programs monitor everyone, these tools can target minorities. Since the NSA can not feasibly run full in depth analyses on everyone while conducting broad surveillance of internet content, the agency targets a select portion of the population to undergo a full analysis, without a warrant. Full analyses monitor all actions an individual performs online, such as email and physical location via cell phone. One tool that is provided to police departments by the federal government is the Stingray. When this tool was first distributed to police, the federal government instructed officers to avoid discussing the Stingray in warrants, testimony, or court, causing officers to lie to prevent discovery. Stingray replicates cell