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Pros And Cons Of NSA Surveillance

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Despite public outcry and threats of impeachment, the National Security Administration’s (NSA) surveillance programs including US984XN, also known as PRISM, benefit the citizens of the United States of America. First of all, these programs are there to protect us from the very real threat of terrorist activity (The verge, 2013). Second, despite uninformed claims to the contrary, these programs could well be legal. Finally, this surveillance does very little to impact the amount of privacy we have in this digital age. The NSA’s surveillance is not a threat to the rights of law abiding US citizens, and should be allowed to continue. The state of global and domestic affairs necessitates the existence of surveillance programs like those implemented …show more content…

Following the national outrage of September 11, the Bush administration passed the Patriot Act in 2001. This allowed the government to surveillance suspected terrorists without a warrant. These government powers were extended in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2006. These laws were passed through congress. Arguments by some that this warrantless surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment ignores the legal concept of ‘substantive due process.’ Simply put, substantive due process is the method the courts use to determine which parts of the constitution to uphold (Francis, 2013). For example, in the past it was argued that federally mandated minimum wage laws violated the right to make contracts, a right protected under the constitution. However, through substantive due process, the courts ruled that minimum wage laws were for the public benefit, and therefore constitutional (Legal Information Institute). The fact that these surveillance programs are explicitly for national defense makes it likely that they will be upheld if brought before the United States Supreme Court, especially considering the ideological leanings of Supreme Court

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The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

174 Words | 1 Pages

This act increased the federal powers imposed on the citizens in order to help their efforts towards investigating terrorists. These powers included telephone taps, internet taps, voice mail, grand jury information, immigration, money laundering, and crime. While these powers made it easier for the government to track down possible suspects of terrorism, it interfered with the people’s right to privacy. All the provisions under the Patriot Act can be used on the citizens with the approval of a court order. Furthermore, it interfered with the Fourth Amendment.

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Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

615 Words | 3 Pages

Introduction Signed into law on 26 October 2001, the US Patriot Act was meant to strengthen security controls and provide Americans with an opportunity to act in the defense of their freedom. Caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks, this rule was intended to help Americans protect themselves from future similar strikes. However, since its enactment 16 years ago, this legislation has provided a veil with which impunity and civil rights violators can hide behind as they perpetrate crime in the name of national security. The act augmented safety and intelligence agencies' powers to acquire confidential information.

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Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

255 Words | 2 Pages

Due to the enactment of the The Patriot Act back in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, the United States has felt its effect on their right to privacy. Many believe that the US has taken advantage of the act to spy on innocent Americans rather than actually gathering information on terrorists. Certain methods are used such as eavesdropping on phone calls, The Prism Program which contains vital information of americans across the internet. A bulk database of phone numbers etc, The Patriot Act does have its positive aspects in certain areas except privacy. However, it also comes with its cons as well.

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Patriot Act Pros And Cons

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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).

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Pros And Cons Of The USA Patriot Act

863 Words | 4 Pages

I also lay out important realities of the law, including how it is being used, and examine whether the intrusions it imposes on American citizens are reasonable. I also discuss the backlash against the law. I conclude with a discussion on the likely future of the law and implications of the law for the criminal justice discipline. The main purpose of the paper is to thoroughly summarize and critically analyze the USA PATRIOT Act, for the benefit of those working in the discipline of criminal justice – who have, as of the current day largely ignored the law. The USA PATRIOT Act stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

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The Pros And Cons Of The USA Patriot Act

1074 Words | 5 Pages

A highly successful program of the Patriot Act in reducing the threat of homegrown terrorism is through the increased attack on fraudulent money laundering. By targeting money laundering, the primary source of funding for terrorist organizations is effectively reduced. This act also expanded other forms of surveillance as well, increasing the authorization for wiretaps and searches by requiring very little evidence to enable one. The act further relaxes pre-measures for the invasion of US residents with the “Sneak and Peak” provision which allows law enforcement to search a suspect’s home without immediately notifying them, potentially for months (“Is the USA Patriot Act Necessary”, 2005). The USA Patriot Act played a huge role in setting current standards for immigrant treatment, “Once it became statutory, the Act gave the legal authorities the unfettered right to detain foreigners for an unlimited length of time, based solely on distrust, without the detainees having due process of law” (Smith, C. S., & Hung, L., 2010, p. 32).

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Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

731 Words | 3 Pages

They are part of Title18 of the United States Code, section 2518 subsection 11, which allows criminal investigators to do the same (U.S. Code, n.d.). Inclusion in the PATRIOT Act just allows the intelligence community to have the same ability to protect the innocent as criminal investigators have when trying to find the

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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.

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This act allows law enforcement agencies (NSA) surveillance

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Whether these actions are considered constitutional though, are much a matter of opinion. According to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, one is entitled to the right of not enduring an unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant. Some may say that the monitoring of internet activity violates this amendment due to the fact that there is no warrant needed, and we aren't exactly sure of when the monitoring is occuring. But of course, this is up to interpretation. It is also hard to say that can something is unconstitutional when it has been going on for a significant period of time, and the actions have been approved by congress.

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Fourth Amendment Pros And Cons

1189 Words | 5 Pages

In 2008, President Bush signed into law The FISA Amendment Act, an act which allowed the government to monitor Americans’ electronic devices. Bush claimed that this Act could help save lives, as mentioned before, but what he did not mention is that this allows the government to conduct surveillance without probable cause. (“How the NSA’s Surveillance Procedures Threaten Americans’ Privacy.”) When people heard about this, they became concerned, and many began to question if the NSA would abuse this power.

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Essay Against The 4th Amendment

806 Words | 4 Pages

“The specific complaint was that this provision violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that deals with the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and seeks to protect this right by “requiring] law enforcement officers to obtain warrants before making most searches. ”(Kubic, 9). Many believe that this new Act is violating the 4th amendment and by extension the Constitution but FBI officers must get a court issued warrant before they can do anything. “Instead, the new law – while not entirely Rube Goldbergian in complexity and confusion – set out a cumbersome and more time-consuming and expensive process to provide much the same results as had the relatively simple Section 215 of the previous act. There seems little doubt that the changes have made the job of identifying potential terrorists more difficult.

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Violating The Fourth Amendment

210 Words | 1 Pages

The fourth amendment can be beneficial but, it can also to some U.S. citizens be invasion of privacy. The fourth amendment 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,” some U.S. citizens believe that Law Enforcement, the Government and the NSA are violating the required guidelines of the Fourth Amendment. The NSA is conducted a mass U.S. surveillance not to believe specific individuals may be engaging in terrorist activity, but instead to believe all of us may be engaging in such activity. The government mass surveillance proves that U.S. citizens are considered suspects at all times. With the Patriot Act the NSA has access to

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168 Words | 1 Pages

“The Patriot Act broadly undermines the rights of all Americans. It reduces judicial oversight of a host of investigative measures, including wiretaps, expands the government 's ability to track individuals ' Internet use and gives federal officials expansive new powers that are in no way limited to investigating terrorist crimes. ( thenation) It authorizes an end run around the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to conduct wiretaps and searches in criminal investigations, without probable cause of a crime, as long as the government claims that it also seeks to gather foreign intelligence--an authority that is particularly questionable in light of recent disclosures from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the FBI has

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1315 Words | 6 Pages

(Bilton, 2013) Surveillance of search engines permits information to be monitored so that if any hazardous search word like how to make bomb is looked it up several times by someone then it can be identified (Anon, 2014). Also, watching over the public assists police to capture crime suspects so that government organizations can protect national security (mass surveillance 위키피디아) To be specific, after terrible incident occurred in September 11, 2001, government of United States enacted the Patriot Act which stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The act was signed by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001 in the name of declaring war with terrorism. (위키피디아) The law grants the right to Federal Bureau of Investigation to profile people who fit certain stereotypes so that potential crime and potential terror can be prevented.

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