NSA Pros And Cons

Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of this nation, had previously addressed a topic that we have been battling with today by stating that, "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." We can decipher from Franklin’s quote that to him, privacy is more important than “so-called” safety. Likewise, the common notion that most people have is that the NSA was established after 9/11 in order to keep us “secure” from outside attacks, however, these assumptions are far from the truth. The NSA was actually created on November 4, 1952 at the command of President Truman in order to provide security during WWII. The Guardian conducted an interview with an NSA worker named William

The 4th Amendment of the constitution “prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be issued by a judge and supported by a probable cause” (constitution, par. 4). If this is the case then the Supreme Court will need to issue 8 billion warrants because not only does the NSA spy on us they also spy on other countries. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments act gives broad targeting guidelines for people outside of the United States. Due to this new Act, America is now allowed to spy on people in other countries if they have reason to believe that they are “suspects.” Based on a study of the largest sample of Section 702 data analyzed to date, approximately 90% of the text messages, emails, instant messages, and other communications retained by NSA, even after the application of minimization procedures, are to or from accounts who are not surveillance targets” (Laperuqque). This shows that the NSA is abusing its power not only in the US but outside as

However that is not the case. James Bamford is a best-selling author who has written multiple books about the National Security Agency. His latest book The Shadow Factory brings to light the fact that the NSA is drowning in so much data that they are running out of places to store it (Bamford, 2). The fact that they don’t have enough space to store their data let alone sift though it all shows a big problem with the National Security Agency. This bulk collection method is invasive and apparently not effective. The NSA has only captured 2 attacks in their 65 years of being one wasn’t even an attack but simply a donation to a terrorist organization. What I want to make clear is the fact that due to this blanket surveillance nothing effective is being done. So the NSA needs to find better methods of keeping America safe along with limiting the scope of Section 702 before foreign countries