For many years, nation’s governments have been monitoring their citizens through the use of surveillance technologies. Initially, privacy concerns involving computer technology arose because citizens feared that a strong centralized government could easily collect and store data about them. For the last decade in the United States, the federal government drastically increased its ability to monitor its citizens due to both changes in its laws and due to advancements in surveillance technologies. Together, the unfolding revelations opened a window into the growth of government surveillance that began under the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has clearly been embraced and even expanded under the Obama administration. In 2007, the United States National Security Agency (NSA) even launched the PRISM program. The NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle, among other things. However, just because we are able to do something it is not always the best decision to do so. For instance, is it wise or even ethical for the government to use this level of surveillance on its citizens in its
CHIAO 1 broad unrestricted searches for terrorists. Let examine the ethics governmental monitoring from the perspective of a variety of ethical models such as the Social Contract model, Kantian model and the Act Utilitarian model.
First, the ethics of governmental monitoring from a social contract perspective. The social contract theory states that rational people will agree to accept those moral rules that will mutually benefit all in the society on the condition that others will agree to follow those rules as well. In order to examine, if governmental monitoring is ethical according to the social contract theory, we must define what we as a society consider to be reasonable expectations of privacy. One such reasonable assumption is that it is reasonable to assume that when we speak on the telephone or a cell phone that our conversations will be private between only us and the party in which we are speaking. It is also reasonable for us to assume that we do not need to worry that someone will be listening to our conversations without our knowledge or consent when we are on our phones or cell phones. Thus, our social contract states that we are entitled to engage in telecommunications without fear of being spied upon. This is a reasonable assumption to make for a civilized free society. However, because our government is using techniques such as warrant-less wiretaps against its citizens where there are secretive and loosely regulated monitoring of telecommunications, our government has violated the social contract with regard our rights for a reasonable expectations of privacy. Therefore, from a social contract point of view, the governments broad monitoring of its citizens through the use of surveillance technologies is unethical and a violation of our social contract. Governmental surveillance was found to be unethical from a social contract point of view. Because within a society there are certain rules that are expected to be followed by everyone and in the case of governmental surveillance, the rules of expectations of privacy have been violated by the government due to their use of techniques such as warrant-less wiretaps on their own citizens. For this reason, governmental surveillance was found to be unethical according to the social contract theory.
Second, the ethics of governmental monitoring from a Kantian perspective. The Kantian theory states that you should treat people as ends in themselves and not as only means to an end. It also states that a person may only break a rule of morality to escape a difficult situation. In order to examine if governmental monitoring is ethical from a Kantian perspective, we must examine why our government is monitoring us. One reason the government is monitoring us is to discover those people in the general public that are involved in major crimes or terrorism activities. It has been argued by those that support governmental monitoring that in order to discover those people involved in major criminal activities or terrorist activities that the government must actively monitor all of its citizens through the use of surveillance. Because the government casts such a broad net of monitoring, they are using all of us as a means to an end. And this broad level of surveillance is used against all of the nation's citizens regardless of whether or not they committed a crime or are involved in terrorist activities. Most of the citizens being monitored are innocent and thus are being used as a means to an end in order to catch a few terrorists and other major criminals that may or may not exist. And looking back retrospectively over the last decade there have been few terrorist’s activities in the United States itself that have been prevented as a result of the internal monitoring and surveillance of United States citizens. There have been a few attempted terrorist acts, however these attempts were few and far between and in most cases had little chance of success. Those involved in these cases, mostly appeared to be misfits that in some cases looked as if they may have been entrapped by law enforcement in sting operations or enticed into attempting terrorist’s activities. This leads to the question of if these individuals were not placed in these situations would they have attempted to commit terrorists acts in the first place. Nearly anyone if placed in the right set of circumstances could potentially be enticed into committing a crime. And the fact remains that no major acts of terrorism within the United States have been uncovered as a result of the government's internal monitoring of United States citizens by electronic surveillance. Therefore, it is unethical for the government to conduct broad surveillance on its citizens according to the Kantian theory because by doing this they not treating the citizens of the country as unique individuals, just as means to an end.
Third, the ethics of governmental monitoring from the act utilitarianism perspective. The Act Utilitarianism theory states that the rightness or wrongness of a moral decision is based on the extent to which the moral decision increases or decreases the total happiness of all affected entities. In order to determine if governmental monitoring of citizens is ethical from an act utilitarian perspective, we must look at both the positives and the negative consequences that may result as a consequence of the monitoring. Positive things such as preventing terrorist attaches and stopping major criminal activities potentially can result from the governmental monitoring. These are some examples of the positive things that occur as a result of the governmental monitoring. However, there are potential negatives consequences that can and have occurred in the United States as a result of governmental monitoring. Negative things such as innocent American citizens being accused of being involved in terrorism can occur as a result of the monitoring. Also, if the governmental leaders tell their citizens that they are not being broadly monitored, then it is later revealed that the government was indeed doing the very things that they just denied doing, it may undermine the faith of the citizens in their government. In other words, this may lead the citizens of a country to assume that their government is always lying to them regardless and as a result they will not want to work with their government out of fear and mistrust. As a result, governmental surveillance was found to be unethical according to the act utilitarianism theory.
In conclusion, all of examined theories seem to find the monitoring to be unethical. As a result of the increased governmental monitoring few terrorist plots have been uncovered within the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. And fewer yet, actual terrorist attempts have been stopped since then. However, the levels of governmental monitoring are increasing no matter which political party is in control the United State's legislative and executive branches.
During the end of the Bush administration, there were several hundred governmental lawyers working for homeland security that needed to be reassigned to work to combat Medicare and Medicaid waste and fraud because there was literally nothing for them to do with regard to terrorism. This all begs the question of why are we continuing to use laws and monitoring that have produced little positive benefit? All that has been accomplished by these laws and monitoring is that our privacy has been invaded in ways that we will never know because the information is classified. Also, there is the question of how is all of this information being stored and used and what safeguards are in place so that the information is not being used in ways that it was not intended. In an age where wiki-leaks and identity theft have become common place, these are serious issues that could negatively impact our lives.