...not as prominent or necessary to ensure the safety of the country. Since 9/11, the government and the NSA have both used surveillance on its citizens so that terrorist attacks or threats to the nation’s security would not happen again. Although this type of surveillance could be beneficial, it is also a privacy concern for not only U.S. citizens, but also for people all around the world. This aspect of the surveillance made U.S. citizens uneasy because of the fact that they felt as if they were being violated. The Patriot Act established for the NSA, the ability to collect this information and spy on innocent people’s lives. This then gave the NSA access to information about people to keep the...
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...Spying of the NSA The past year we all have heard of the NSA spying through social media, phones and all sorts of stuff, we heard of this because of Edward Snowden, an ex CIA- system analyst. He exposed their spying and this has resulted in to a global issue. Because the spying is wrong on so many levels we are here to convince you that what the NSA is doing is wrong. *attention grabber* So now that I have your attention I will continue. Main Point 1: How is it possible that the NSA is spying on civilians? Sub Point 1: What is the NSA; I’m going to begin by telling you a little about what the NSA is. The NSA better known as the National Security Agency is the main producer and manager of the signals intelligence for the United States. The NSA is responsible for the protection of U.S. government. The NSA is tasked with monitoring on targeted individuals in the U.S. But the NSA doesn’t just spy on targeted individuals; they spy on every U.S. citizen, they even spy on world leaders. They can spy on anyone around the world, and they can do this through social media, the internet and phones. I will explain this in more detail later. Ok so now that I’ve talked about what the NSA is, I will tell you guys how it is possible that the NSA is spying on us. Well to begin, the NSA spying program started back when George Bush was the president of the United States, the spying started right after nine eleven, this was in 2001 and that is 13 years ago so consider how long they have...
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...Sharath Thomas Professor Hugetz ENGL 1301.08 05 April 2016 NSA Surveillance - Constitutional or Unconstitutional The US Constitution came to life 230 years ago, but recent actions of the National Security Agency is interpreted to be defying the Bill of Rights by the government and depriving the citizens their constitutional right to privacy. However, when posed with the question: Do people want to live in a surveillanced environment like animals in a zoo, with justice and safety ensured but privacy denied completely ? , the answers vary in the community. The revelation of the National Security Agency's massive surveillance of American citizens has prompted a debate about the constitutionality of the agency's actions. The policies of the the National Security Agency is said to be conflicting with the basic right of privacy guaranteed to citizens in the Fourth Amendment. The "metadata" collection carried out by the National Security Agency, including all kinds of personal records and assets along with a list of phone calls and electronic messages poses a challenge to the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Eavesdropping on people is a loaded feature of NSA: " It specializes in pretty much one thing, and that's eavesdropping on communications around the world, whether it's e-mail, cell phones, regular telephones--any kind of communications--and also...
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...Individual Privacy vs. National Security Anthony Sifuentes ENG 122 English Composition II Instructor vonFrohling February 13, 2012 Individual Privacy vs. National Security The need to protect National Security is far more important than individual privacy. The greatest part of living in the United States of America is the freedom that we have. That freedom and the right to live freely is protected by various government agencies. From time to time, the privacy a person has may have to be invaded to guarantee the security of the country and other citizens. Everyone has the right to not have their life controlled by the government, but it has the right to make sure that citizens are not doing anything to threaten the security of the country. Our freedom also comes at a price; that price is the need of the government to monitor some of the things we do so ensure that the United States is not in danger of a terrorist attack or an attempted overthrow of the government. The most glaring example of how National Security is more important than the privacy of an individual is September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks that day have changed how Americans see our National Security and it must take precedence over anything else. One definition found for national security is: “The measures taken by the state to ensure the security of itself, or its citizens or subjects.” (Thomas, 2007) He goes on to explain that is both a right and a responsibility for a state to protect its...
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...“An Expectation of Privacy” Since the 1700’s, when John Wilkes felt his right to privacy was violated by the British Crown, the Fourth Amendment was written into the Bill of Rights to protect an individual's right to privacy. An individual's right to privacy allows one the freedom and liberty to seclude himself or information about himself from the government and public. This right is compromised when an individual possesses an expectation of privacy but his/her privacy is not received as expected. I support Judge Leon’s ruling on the case of Klayman v. Obama, and believe all individuals have a right to privacy that should not be compromised by the government. In the case of Klayman v. Obama, the United States government invaded individuals rights to privacy. As a result of one’s “expectation of privacy,” the United States should be found guilty. The United States government invaded individuals rights to privacy by invading their “expectation of privacy,” a right provided to all citizens by the Fourth Amendment. In Klayman v. Obama, the United States Government overstepped its boundaries and violated the privacy of American citizens which is protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Judge Richard Leon found the National Security Agency (NSA) and a long list of defendants including President Obama, US Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice, Verizon Communications, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, YouTube, AOL, PalTalk, Skype,...
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...It has been known that the federal government has documents that it tries to hide from the people. But one man was able to get around that and leaked hundreds of classified documents to the press. That man’s name was Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden was born in 1983 in Elizabeth City, NC. He later moved to Maryland with his mother who worked at the Federal Court in Baltimore, Maryland as a chief deputy clerk. Snowden failed to complete high school and dropped out of a local community college twice. However, “between his stints at community college, Snowden spent four months (May to September 2004) in the Army Reserves in special-forces training. According to Army sources, he did not complete any training, and Snowden has said that he was...
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...NSA Surveillance Program The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was created in 1978 as a response to past presidential abuses of massive domestic wiretapping and surveillance that were conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) on many innocent Americans. FISA was designated to limit warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance for national security purposes and to issue the extent to which NSA could seize domestic communications. An executive power would need a warrant approved by FISA and only for the cases where the sole intention for the surveillance was to obtain foreign intelligence information (Skalski 15). Things changed shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 when President Bush secretly gave authorization to the NSA to wiretap Americans on the US soil without a warrant from FISA. By the same year, the Bush Administration passed the Patriotic Act that enabled FBI to demand the sharing of “any tangible things sought relevant to an authorized investigation” (Barnett 4), including strictly domestic records. Also, three days after the terrorist attacks, the Congress passed AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) Act that was a necessity, but it was wrongly used by the Bush Administration as the reason of permission for the massive spying program. Because of the secrecy of these surveillance transmissions, the American public had no idea of the existence of these...
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...Nunnally-Rivera The American Civil Liberties Union: Strategy and Vision The American Civil Liberties Union, otherwise known as the ACLU, has an extensive and influential history in the United States. The ACLU has ambitious legislative goals in the near future. In order to accomplish these goals, this interest group must fight vigorously for the public’s hearts and minds, as well as the democratic power of Congress. The organization started in the year 1920 after years of anti-war protests and the Red Scare that lead to the infamous Palmer Raids. A group of citizens banded together with the purpose of protecting the basic rights of everyday Americans. While initially, most of the ACLU’s support was directed towards socialist and communist rights, the organization eventually expanded to include minority groups oppressed by discrimination, women’s rights groups, and virtually any citizen who felt their civil liberties had been violated. The goal of the ACLU is to make sure that everyone in the United States is equally protected by the Bill of Rights from government abuse. Although the ACLU is a non-partisan organization, its views tend to typically lean towards the left, and many of its supporters tend to be either liberal or libertarian (votesmart.org). The interest group tends to run into controversy often since it is willing to defend the rights of certain infamous groups such as the Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. It’s important to note that the American Civil Liberties Union...
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...On November 4th, 1952, the President Harry Truman established the National Security Agency (NSA), the government agency responsible for collecting and processing domestic and foreign intelligence. The Truman presidency formed the agency in response to the failure of its intelligence predecessors-- the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) and Army Security Agency (ASA), formed during World War II to decipher messages sent and received by the Axis powers, failed due to lack of coordination between the intelligence agencies, the CIA, and the FBI; the Cipher Bureau and Military Intelligence Branch, Section 8 (MI-8) and "Black Chamber" were established to monitor Germany's activities during World War I were shut down by the U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, on the grounds that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." At the time of its formation, the NSA was a top secret agency, and was commonly referred to as the "No Such Agency" by officials to reflect this....
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...Patrick Hughes Philosophy 203 – Introduction to Ethics August 7, 2015 ETHICS OF WIRETAPPING Since the First World War, government has been known to use private companies to wiretap phone lines for information. The legal structures, established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), have defined a framework for legally securing a warrant for searches and tapping into phone lines of the American populace. Sometimes the government uses warrantless wiretapping without proper authorization and it exposes telecommunications companies to legal and financial ramifications. What I will argue in this paper is that warrantless wiretapping is unlawful and not ethical, as it harms citizens and violates their privacy. My position is that it is not violation of personal liberties and is immoral for the NSA to have access data when your average citizen is not a threat. Not completely following this law pertaining to wiretapping deviates from the natural check and balance system of the federal government. The failure to procure a warrant when wiretapping violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, and provokes media criticism. The National Security Administration (NSA) and other government agencies are required to wiretap only with the direct written authority of the FISA-assembled courts through a signed warrant. In rare cases, however, such as an imminent terror plot, against the government should it be allowed to intervene. ...
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...In the modern world, our privacy is constantly being violated without our consent. This is due to information that is easily available. Whether you’re walking down the street, taking the subway, purchasing online items or in a store, chatting online, we are constantly under someone’s watch. Hacking, picture leaks and theft of private information are becoming recurrent issues in the 21st century. Some believe this may not be an issue but others are concerned with the impact it could have on our lives. The twentieth century was particularly marked by the growth of the Internet and the rise of social media programs. This has raised the population’s awareness about their privacy rights. A lot of information can be found online including credit...
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...several aspects of the Fourth Amendment, and recent articles on the NSA. Upon examination, it becomes clear that the NSA is indeed breaching the rights of lawful U.S citizens. Through showing that the Fourth Amendment protects the U.S citizens against such actions. Key Words: NSA, Fourth, Amendment, warrant, PRISM, Edward, Snowden. The NSA collects millions of American phone, internet, and personal information. They do this by using a system call PRISM which allows them to collect this data through several different internet websites. However, many believe this is in complete violation of the Fourth Amendment which protects against unwarranted searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The ultimate goal of this provision is to protect people’s right to privacy and freedom from arbitrary governmental intrusions. Private intrusions not acting in the color of governmental authority are exempted from the Fourth Amendment. To have standing to claim protection under the Fourth Amendment, one must first demonstrate an expectation of privacy, which is not merely a subjective expectation in mind but an expectation...
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...not perish from the earth.” The NSA surveillance program goes against this principle. It poses a substantial threat to the social contract and is illegal both domestically and globally. Edward Snowden’s revelations about these activities were done so in the public interest and set him apart from many other Americans charged with espionage by the U.S. government- he is a whistleblower. For this reason, in the eyes of the international community he has committed a non-violent political crime (under the assumption that he has committed a crime). Because of this and other reasons, granting Snowden political asylum is absolutely within Russia’s rights. One can witness a large effort on behalf of the US government, from the latter half of the 20th century...
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...not as great as it sounded. British writer George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. in 1949. 1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated, and many Americans supported communism as possible political systems for the west. Therefore, Orwell wrote his novel in order to expose the cruelty and oppression of communist countries. In his dystopian nation, Orwell gave a sneak peak of what a country could become if the people gave all the power to the government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society in which the government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that having a disloyal thought is against the law. They do so with the use of technology such as tele screens and microphones across the city which allowed the government to monitor all the citizens almost all of the times. In order to keep the citizens of London loyal and obedient to the government, they use psychological manipulation designed to overwhelm the minds capacity for independent thought. Every citizen has a giant tele screen which not only monitors their behavior, but also feed citizens with positive propaganda of the government which makes them believe their government is successful in every way. "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,...
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...PRISM: NSA’s Loophole As Americans, most are aware to some extent that the government spies on us. Edward Snowden, though he was a criminal, released information about the National Security Agency tracking our every move, giving us a glimpse of the government’s secrets. The NSA reassures us: only high risk citizens have their information collected. But what lies between the lines is the definition of collect. NSA defines collect as having workers physically review the information, not gather the files. Each and every one of our conversations are housed in a database organized by the NSA called PRISM. That conversation with your mom earlier today—recorded. And the email from your boss saying you being laid off, also recorded. Any communication...
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