"The US was a nation born out of uncertainty, no one knew if the revolution would succeed, if George Washington would survive or if the loyalists would be removed from their positions, but people still went charging into the unknown. They did not know what the opinion of their fellow soldiers or even their neighbors, but that did not stop them in their pursuit of liberty. There are concerns today of what the US government should do to in order to insure security and prevent domestic attacks. This has evolved into; security in more locations such as airports and banks, conflicts abroad, done to destroy threats on the outside from ever entering the US. But this pursuit of safety for the American people has also led to increased monitoring of Americans. With digital technology becoming a large part of our lives, more of our private information can be easily obtained and tracked by hackers. This has encouraged the US government to pursue this open information to discover and stop potential crimes before they even start. However, this is a massive drift away from what the US government was built on. The Us government has no lawful claim to monitor internet content of any kind as any monitoring interferes with constitutional ideas and is what incentivised the revolution over 200 years ago. The US was founded under oppressive circumstances. Since the founding of the colonies, they were …show more content…
When considering what we allow our government to do, we must consider what the British government did over 200 years ago and attempted to fix. When seeing the oppression faced then, we can see that allowing any part of the US government to monitor the internet will lead to the same oppression that we faced previously that our founding fathers tried to prevent. Therefore, the government of the US at any level has no authority from the constitution to monitor the
Recently the right to privacy has been severely threatened by the Patriot Act. The USA PATRIOT ACT, which was made a law on October 26, 2001 by president George W. Bush, let criminal investigators use whatever tools necessary to find terrorist attacks before they happened; USA PATRIOT ACT is short for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". This was made a law in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center in NYC on September 11, 2001. Law enforcement officials were given better resources to fight financial counterfeiting, smuggling and money laundering schemes that funded terrorists. The Patriot Act’s definition of terrorism also gave
The American Constitution gives U.S. citizens basic civil liberties that provide protection from the federal government through the Bill of Rights and the Amendments added throughout American history. However, the national government has repeatedly taken away these significant liberties during a war, and in this era the government’s war on terrorism stirs up controversy all over the globe after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Supporters of the government’s detainment of non-citizens and the NSA’s surveillance of data Internet Service Providers--for example, claim that being secure and safe takes priority over established values. In the anthology Rereading America, Gary Colombo’s The Myth of Freedom;
The U.S follows a different school of surveillance. Despite the fundamental right to be held “innocent until proven guilty”, it monitors everyone until proven innocent. The status quo could of course damage America’s long known liberties granted by the Constitution. Recent revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, have confirmed that the government is more likely to cross some constitutional lines in the name of national security. “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) regulates the government’s acquisition of any electronic surveillance within the country for foreign intelligence use.
Edward Snowden sparked huge sensational news stories and debates over the groundbreaking revelation of the massive surveillance program that was authorized by Congress and the president of the United States of America. It was formally presented as the USA PATRIOT Act by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. The PATRIOT Act was approved by a large bipartisan majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The PATRIOT Act soon went under the radar as the US went into war in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Edward Snowden forced up the issue of civil liberties and national security once again when he released documents specifically pertaining to the National Security Agency out to The Guardian.
In 2001 only a little over a month after 911 The Patriot Act was passed. On the surface the act seems to be concerned with the safety of the American people; however it was reactionary, a result of the culture of fear created by America’s first experience with terrorism, a word that still holds a powerful
Imagine for a second that every phone call you make, every text message you send, and every place you go is being constantly monitored by multiple governments. Well this is basically what the United State and United Kingdom's government is doing on a daily basis. The United States National Security Agency has been implementing projects in secret to monitoring people since 2001 but it would still be kept as a secret if Edward Snowden did not reveal this massive secret that was intruding the public’s privacy for years. The U.S. surveillance program started because of the September 9th, 2001 terrorist attack that hijacked airplanes and slammed them into the World Trade Center towers.
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.
Ever since Harry Truman, the government has been keeping internet and phone records. But now, it’s gone too far. On October 26, 2001, President George W Bush signed the USA Patriot Act. When it went through Congress, the House of Representatives passed the act with a vote of
The government has many tools in looking into people's information but the government doesn't realize that it is violating the 4th amendment by using the resources they have in looking into suspected people and that's the reason why we cannot trust our information to be safe with the government either way. David Cole, a lawyer who teaches constitutional law and national security at Georgetown University, and other legal analysts says that, “The world of computers has weakened the Fourth Amendment. " In the modern digital age, it means very, very little. "(citation). The reason why he says this is because, before we had computers, no one knew who we were seeing or where we were going throughout the day, but if someone were to know they would have to wiretap our things to know.
The United States needs to start seriously monitoring emails, text messages, phone calls, and web searches for any suspicious activity that could lead to terrorism. This is no joke, extremism in the defense of being able to go to a baseball game, or concert without anxiety is no vice. If anyone is a suspected terrorist, they should be monitored. Some people say that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, but is it worth risking a life? Monitoring a suspected terrorist could prevent an attack from happening, and save lives.
After the gruesome attacks of 9/11, the United States government passed a legislation called the Patriot Act in attempt to cut down on the terror attacks. This act gives the NSA, or National Security Agency, the ability to oversee our actions. The NSA’s approach to surveilling the population is obtaining the information by tapping into technology, such as phone calls, internet pages and searches, and viewing emails and texts. Thus, controversy has triggered due to the fact that these actions are unconstitutional, and much terrorism that remains. The NSA should be greatly altered because they invade the privacy of Americans, unlawfully goes against the constitution, and we lose our rights.
There’s a question americans usually ask themselves, is the government trustable? Many citizens would answer no, many americans believe that the government is constantly watching them. The privacy of americans citizens is being violated by the gps trackers in our phones that the government can see and monitor, how the governments listens to our calls and how they store all our information. This is similar to the privacy violations explored in 1984 by showing how in 1984 Big Brother is constantly watching it’s citizens.
The United States spends more on its defense than any other country in the world, in a democratic state whose constitution Alexander Hamilton helped to inspire. It’s questionable as to what lengths a democratic system should go to keep its citizens safe as ultimately security cannot be unconditionally guaranteed. Having a debate between liberty and security is by no means a new one, its influence on political thought can be profoundly polarizing, as the extremes of both liberty and security can be witnessed around the world and throughout history. The principles that must be prioritized within a democracy while still affording safety, revolves around the ability of citizens to exercise their political liberties.
To be free is defined as the condition or right of being able or allowed to do whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited. In today’s society freedom can allow you to a variety of things. To be safe is defined as the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger or risk. In my opinion safety is more important than freedom. Freedom is something that can be offered anywhere.
(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.