Why Is Government Surveillance Important

In this paper, I argue against Government Surveillance. Although a society full of cameras could help solve some crimes, it is also true that the Constitution, through the fourth amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Despite the fact that this is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law should be monitored. In addition, increasing political surveillance with the excuse of protection against war or enemies only fuels the fact that innocent people’s lives are being monitored. Finally, the information collected by the mass internet surveillance programs could be used for other harmful purposes since hackers could gain access to the databases and sell the information to other companies or terrorist groups.

Government watching is something that the government shouldn’t do because although there are bad people in this world it is irrelevant for them to watch everyone because not everyone is bad and many people disfavors this decision. In fact, the majority of Americans disapprove of the U.S. government collecting their phone and internet data as a

Surveillance came about for the purpose of distinguishing people from one another and placing them into groups. It also helped to keep track of population control and keep track of land ownership. Surveillance provides us with knowledge, which helps maintain order and retain implemented rules.

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 NSA or the National Security Agency carries out most of the domestic surveillance in the United States. Before the 9/11 attacks the NSA needed approval from a court, but after the attacks, they were given free reign to copy any data that possibly linked to terrorist activities. This led to many arguments over whether this collection of data was unconstitutional or not. The extent of this surveillance shocked many people; many civil rights advocates thought that this surveillance breached United States citizens’ rights. Because of the threat of domestic surveillance in the United States it should be decreased drastically but not entirely stopped.

You shouldn’t have to be watched if you aren’t deemed a threat to yourself or society. In my opinion humans are naturally more private creatures that don’t like sharing everything about themselves. The individual right of privacy allows humans to hide somethings about themselves, if it doesn’t seem harmful. However, surveillance is used in public order to observe those that could be plotting against the government, or an attack in the United States. Surveillance has been used to catch and stop many dangerous people who show a threat to the safety of the United States. It is very important to use surveillance, but if you use it unjustly it can give more power to public order than individual rights. It causes a similar problem as the ones mentioned before, that it can prove challenging to identify if you had a good reason to use surveillance. You might not always know if you have a good enough reason to use surveillance, but you should exercise your best judgement to decide whether or not to use

According to the text “Our value is founded on a unique and deep understanding of risks, vulnerabilities, mitigations, and threats. Domestic Surveillance plays a vital role in our national security by using advanced data mining systems to "connect the dots" to identify suspicious patterns” (NSA). One of the slogans of the NSA is, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. However, if you have nothing to hide there is no argumentation as to why the NSA taps into any form of communication or access to the internet. Therefore, this withdraws the power of the people and puts it directly back into the government and, simultaneously belittles citizen’s

People claim that nowadays they are living in surveillance society because Big Brother in twenty first century is keeping a close eye on people’s daily life. If so what is the meaning of Big Brother? The word Big Brother first introduced in George Orwell’s book named 1984. He said that “Big Brother is Watching You.”(George Orwell, published year). Big brother implies the authority that regulates and monitors information and citizens. Currently, technology developments such as closed-circuit television, black box, cell phone, and a bunch of search engines, allow to record every moves that people make and to give rise to surveillance society. Surveillance society has two sides of the coin. In this essay, I will deliver pros and cons about surveillance society and possible solutions to deal with the issue.

The recent revelations about the NSA surveillance programme have cause concern and outrage by citizens and politicians across the world. What has been missing, though, is any extended discussion of why the government wants the surveillance and on what basis is it authorised. For many commentators surveillance is wrong and it cannot be justified. Some commentators have argued that surveillance is intrinsic to the nature of government and its ability to deliver the public good.[1] Few, though have looked at the surveillance within a wider context to understand how it developed. A notable exception is the work by Steven Aftergood.

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 other side of this argument is that mass surveillance is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. This is what Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy had to say on the matter. “’Americans deserve to understand more about the NSA's collection and use of their phone records, and in particular about the types of systemic problems revealed in these documents,’”(Risen 4). In a similar way according to Risen “the American public remains wary of the threat of terrorism but is also critical of government surveillance programs put in place”, and that “majority of Americans ‘oppose mass surveillance of people's Internet and phone usage for use in future investigations.’“(Risen 6). People on this side of the argument feel it is their right to their own privacy given to them by the fourth amendment and feel that the Fourth amendment should protect them and their privacy without question, or any loopholes. While the Fourth Amendment does not exclusively mention technology, it should be a acknowledged that when the Bill of Rights was created, technology was not anticipated and it is the job of the people to recognize and adapt the Fourth Amendment to fit modern times and not use the literal wording of a document made hundreds of years ago to their advantage to be able to encroach on the people’s personal actions online. Some People also think that what they post on the internet IS their property

The documentary “Citizenfour” aims to raise public awareness about the state surveillance in the name of so-called maintenance of national security. It consists of related news and a series of interviews with Edward Snowden, revealing details about PRISM. What it mostly shows is facts rather than one’s opinion. Notice that the media depiction hugely influences the way people view the issue. The less opinion and emotional description are used, the more room for the audience to think.

Topic: Surveillance cameras in public places such as malls and streets are a great idea to increase security against criminals and not a breach of privacy.

With the advancement of surveillance technology, many citizens feel that their privacy rights have been violated due to homeland security and the threat of terrorism. Throughout history our government has implemented domestic and international surveillance as a way to safeguard our society from other countries. Now the question that seems to arise within our society is if the government is infringing on our civil liberties? Or is this indeed protecting our nation from imminent danger?

"  In our World, threats to our Country are common and are becoming frequent. Issues like bullying, extremism, terrorism, and even the illegal production and distribution of drugs threaten all parts of the world more than ever. Not to mention, our increasing dependence on technology for business transactions, work, school, and storage of information has opened up a medium to effectuate these actions. The use of the internet no doubt is beneficial but like anything else, it can, and has been put to ill use. Controversy has been stirred up concerning the monitoring of internet content by the government. Many believe that this action is violating their right inscribed in the fifth amendment which protects against self-incrimination, which in turn protects the privacy of personal information. But with the existence of agencies such as the NSA and Acts like the USA PATRIOT Act, the government has shown that it is more concerned with the national