ipl-logo

Government Surveillance In America Pros And Cons

1025 Words5 Pages

Why did a government surveillance official lie to America? In March 2015, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper declared the National Security Agency (NSA) does not “collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans” (Engler). Then Edward Snowden revealed that truthfully, plenty of data was being collected and surveyed by the government through the bulk collection of private phone information. James Clapper later stated he “misunderstood the question” (Engler). Not only does this spark rage, but also reveals that the government has been using its resources to data mine at the ignorance of citizens, where a computer algorithm tries to find potential threats in hopes of stopping terrorism. Additionally, …show more content…

The USA Patriot Act has been “secretly interpreted to authorize the collection of Americans’ phone records” on a massive scale, which shows a reckless abuse of power because there is no way that “all [citizens’] phone records can be relevant to any particular authorized investigation” (“The Pros and Cons” 1). Most importantly, a “three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals” concluded on May 7, 2015 that the NSA “engaged in repeated, substantial legal violations” of privacy with their bulk data collection program (“The Pros and Cons” 1). The government is performing illegal activity in hopes of catching illegal activity. Why is there so much irony in their actions? Simple logic takes play here: the law should not be broken by the government. They cannot be trusted to responsibly handle sensitive data when they lack respect for the law and lack respect for …show more content…

Apple letting the FBI into their system to see terrorist data poses extreme risks, because as soon as Apple has “a back door installed, all kinds of people can walk in” (“Apple vs. The FBI”). Essentially, if the government can invade privacy, untrustworthy people can as well. Most importantly however, there must be limits placed on what the government can do, lest they infringe the basic rights of citizens. How can anybody stand having their data mined without consent? The government knows “Americans’ social connections … their associates, their locations at certain times, their travelling companions, and other personal information” (Engler). They know the whereabouts of innocent people. Does this not create an unsettling discomfort? Frighteningly, there are no limits on what the government can see, there are no limits on how far they can go to invade privacy, and there are no limits on what they can do with their citizens’

Show More
Related

Pros And Cons Of The USA Patriot Act

423 Words | 2 Pages

The USA Patriot Act, also known as "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" was a rushed act passed 45 days after the devastating terrorist attack on the twin towers September 11th, 2001. It was composed with the intention of finding and prosecuting international terrorists on American soil, but consequently violated the constitution. In addition, the Patriot act allows surveillance on all emails, internet, and cell phones to try and catch terrorists. Regardless, the act ended up having more power than primarily planned as stated in the CNN debate on the patriot act. America was founded on the principle of individual liberties and the pursuit of happiness in the context

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

567 Words | 3 Pages

The Patriot Act is one of today’s most controversial laws. The law’s official name is the USA PATRIOT Act, which stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. The law was passed in 2001 after the September Eleventh terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The act greatly increased the power of the government in preventing terrorism, but it also increased the amount of surveillance that the government performs on citizens.

Read More

Patriot Act Pros And Cons

953 Words | 4 Pages

One group that argues this is the American Civil Liberties Union, which strongly disagrees with the Patriot Act. They have stated that investigations into the Patriot Act, “reveal thousands of violations of law,” (ACLU), while this is simply not true. One controversial piece of the Patriot Act are roving wiretaps. These allow government investigators to follow and put surveillance on certain people, rather than certain devices, so that they may save time and effort. According to Nathan Sales, a law professor at George Mason University, “Federal courts agree that Title III’s roving wiretaps authority is constitutional and… provides strong support for constitutionality,” (Sales).

Read More

Pros And Cons Of The USA Patriot Act

1198 Words | 5 Pages

In the same article it is said that, “Leon previously said the bulk collection of phone records is likely unconstitutional.” The problem of the NSA collecting phone data and storing the information continued to be a problem over a decade after the Act was signed into law. “In a May 2015 decision, a federal appellate court found the aforementioned program to be illegal under the PATRIOT Act… Collecting massive records in a database for some ‘hypothetical future time’ was not relevant under the statute” (Pike USA PATRIOT Act Still Raising Questions). The Patriot Act allows the government to ignore the constitution when it comes to imprisonment of suspected terrorists and allows the government to spy on its

Read More

9/11 Shaped American Society

748 Words | 3 Pages

Now in today’s standards, you only have freedom of semi-privacy that the Patriot Act believes is non-threatening. By them monitoring your texts, emails, history along with things you look for in search engines you never truly free to say anything or look up anything you want. Also what followed after this act were the random abductions of people. They take the “random,” person and ship them to another country to loophole their laws of not permitting torturing someone in this country. Instead they hire other countries to do their dirty work.

Read More

Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

435 Words | 2 Pages

CONCLUSION The USA Patriot Act violates the Unites States Constitution. The Patriot Act's purpose is to protect Americans from foreign threats and domestic terrorist attacks, however, the cons of this Act far outweigh the pros. It is important to protect Americans, but the illusion of homeland safety is not worth relinquishing civil rights for.

Read More

How Did 9/11 Changed America

879 Words | 4 Pages

In other words, they are collecting a lot of data from our phone conversations, emails, and social networking communications every single day. As the article states, it says that when Congress passed the Patriot Act, it expanded federal officials’ powers to keep tabs on most of our personal information. Not only are they intercepting emails, but they are also tracking credit card use, cell phone call, and car travel. This may seem a bit invasive, but a survey shows that about ⅔ of Americans are willing to put up with the personal impositions in order to prevent

Read More

Patriot Act Pros And Cons

942 Words | 4 Pages

The USA PATRIOT Act passed in the days following the September 11 attacks was passed to give law enforcement agencies more power to track and prosecute suspected terrorists. While stopping terrorism is a noble goal, eroding the constitutional rights of Americans is not. The Patriot act denies Americans their

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of NSA Privacy

842 Words | 4 Pages

It evolve over time and President George W. Bush’s "Terrorist Surveillance Program" had created PRISM. This program gave NSA access to “Big Data” like phone’s metadata and data that are sent over the internet (Gellman B and Poitras L). This issue became aware to the public at June 6th, 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed to the items to The Guardian.

Read More

Patriot Act Pros And Cons

641 Words | 3 Pages

The PATRIOT Act violates Fourth Amendment: the right to an unlaw search and seizure, and because phone records are recorded without the knowledge of any American it violates the amendment. By secretly recording all phone calls the civil rights of all Americans are being restricted and denied. The government is way over-stepping their boundaries with the PATRIOT Act. Civil rights are of the most importance to every American and it is not something the government has any obligation to intrude upon. The FBI and the NSA break the law by recording the phone calls.

Read More

Pros And Cons Of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

1691 Words | 7 Pages

NSA hides the fact that they are monitoring on US citizens without the warrant as they find some connection between the person monitored and some illegal activity to justify their monitoring. At first, after the 9/11, President George W. Bush started a program of mass monitoring of US communication. He had started it without FISA Court’s knowledge and when the population find out about this Congress had to create and enact the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 and inside was the crucial Section 702 that, by law, validates mass monitoring over the last 7 years. These communication monitoring systems rely on these two statutes: FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (Section 702) and Patriot Act (Section 215).

Read More

The Fourth Amendment: The Patriot Act

260 Words | 2 Pages

The fourth amendment makes it hard for Law enforcement conducting investigations to get information that could be very useful. The apple company gets thousands and thousands of information requests that they are legally not allowed to share,and a large portion of the requests are from people whose devices have been lost or stolen. Additionally, lots of times Apple says no to the information requests, and even once Apple is approved to give personal material they still share a minimal amount of data, however Apple does collect a minimal amount of data. The patriot act allows certain exceptions having to do with terrorists to be made when finding information, and they are very helpful to law enforcement, but only in terroristic situations. Furthermore the amount of information that the Patriot act allows investigators to get for terror crimes just shows how much information we could be getting about horrific criminals that are not yet in jail.

Read More

Why Is The Patriot Act Important

513 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever wondered why the Patriot Act played a big part in history or why it is so important to us? Well the government has compromised our civil liberties through the use of the Patriot Act. They also abused our privacy which wasn’t fair for us. The history of the Patriot Act, the abuse of our rights, and the way everything ended made the Americans feel like they couldn’t trust their government because they felt like they were always being watched. Through the Patriot Act, the law enforcement agencies and the government are given wide optional powers to acquire information not only from suspected people but also from the law-abiding Americans.

Read More

The Benefits Of The Fourth Amendment

153 Words | 1 Pages

The increased usage of computers, phones and other electronics have led to excessive crime electronically that can be discovered by the NSA following the U.S. patriot act. Law enforcement also can get access to hard drives and emails. Although, the fourth

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Invasion Of Privacy

916 Words | 4 Pages

How would you feel as a U.S. citizen if you knew the government was invading your privacy without you even realizing it? Well, this is something that is currently happening to people by the government. The government is currently invading people’s privacy without getting people’s consent. They are doing this by hacking into people’s phones and emails, letting police scan people’s faces and putting them into a database, and finally hacking into people’s social media accounts.

Read More

More about Government Surveillance In America Pros And Cons

Related Topics

Open Document