Why Is Government Surveillance Necessary

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.

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.

NSA Surveillance "I can 't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they 're secretly building" (Edward Snowden). The NSA began monitoring and collecting sensitive and personal information from Americans such as their emails, phone calls, photos and other private material. Massive surveillance began in 2001 after the terrorist attack in New York and since then there has been a big peak in government watching. It 's unnecessary for the NSA to monitor American’s private conversations as well as other sensitive data because people should be able to have a sense of privacy in personal communication with others. 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.

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

According to Richards (2013), it is illegitimate and pernicious to establish an underground and comprehensive surveillance in the society. First, individual privacy, which should be granted and well protected by the law, is now violated. Under PRISM, personal details, including thoughts, movements, communication, transaction and health record, is being systemically and consistently collected without a permit from the owners. The right to hold these details is shifted from the individuals to the state. The state then can make use of the information for certain political purposes like filtering criminal/ terrorist-related suspects out of the government or even country.

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.

Since September 11th, fear connected with national security threats has shifted to fear of the federal government. The U.S.A. Patriot Act certainly caused much anxiety amongst society. Signed by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, this act increased law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers, “The purpose of the USA PATRIOT Act is to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes.” Clearly, federal agents have abused their power, as personal information, telephone calls, and Internet searches were and are being recorded and saved. A recent news article, posted in The Guardian, fully elucidates the intrusive government spying of American citizens, “the watchlist tracks ‘known’ and ‘suspected’ terrorists and includes both foreigners and Americans.

This has caused people to be unable to travel, attain jobs, or even access their own money. In Monica Hughes’s Invitation to the Game, we see examples of government surveillance such as the thought police that infiltrate the character’s minds to get information.(pg.19) A lot has led up to the advanced government surveillance that we have today. Government surveillance has been around since the Roman Empire days. In Ancient Rome,

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

why the NSA is bad some people believe that everything on the internet should be monitored by the NSA, well i believe that is completely wrong and unjust. for a couple reasons. But the main one is that it goes against the fourth amendment in the constitution. The fourth amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by a probable cause, which means that the NSA can 't search your messages,calls,search history, or data unless they have a reason that is lawful and approved by a judge. But in most cases they don 't have it approved.

History does show that in countries that were not democratic, the citizenry is less likely to express its disapproval of the current regime fearing consequences. Even in the United States, during the counting of the census falsified information may be given to the government in a way to hide the true identity of the person. Recently passed laws and executive orders like the Patriot Act and the National Security Agency (NSA) especially as a result of a former government contractor by the name Edward Snowden makes the subject of interest to researchers. Study shows that citizens of the United States believe that greater political participation will make it highly likely that they will be a target of government monitoring. More recent monitoring by government in the United States seems to increase the political participation of the United States citizens.