Government Surveillance in America
On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by terrorist groups in New York City by a terrorist group that cost thousands of lives. The acts of terrorism that happened in 2001 were followed by the U.S House writing an act that would be called “Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” or “The Patriot Act”. This act was eventually passed and put into effect. It being passed gave government intelligence agencies the power to intrude into personal lives of Americans. The ability of the U.S. Government to access personal information is immoral in many ways. This would include monitoring online activity, listening to phone conversations by means of wiretap, and monitoring …show more content…
A program called X-KEYSCORE was developed and used by the NSA that provides the “widest reaching” access of information about individual’s online activity. (Regan 36). These certain type of practices could be happening to anyone at any time. The U.S. government justifies these practices by searching for “act of terrorism”. Terrorist organizations wanting to make arrangements by means of email could be easily exploited as well. Email addresses can be disguised as another person or organization in a process called masquerading. (Regan 35). This method would manipulate the sender of the email to make it appear they were communicating with someone else, thus being able to receive highly personal information from anyone they choose. In an article on the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, is pointed out that surveillance technologies…
“invade our private space to gather information which government agents would otherwise be unable to access without an intrusive search of our homes or our bodies” (Simmons …show more content…
It is stated, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” (Barnett 5). In a democratic society that the U.S. was founded on, it should be imperative for the people to able to have a say in the way a government might monitor activity. As stated in the Harvard Law Review, “Democratic societies should prohibit the creation of any domestic surveillance programs whose existence is secret” (Richards 1959). This interpretation of democratic freedom suggests that secrecy among a government is not the essence of democracy
On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by terrorist groups in New York City by a terrorist group that cost thousands of lives. The acts of terrorism that happened in 2001 were followed by the U.S House writing an act that would be called “Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” or “The Patriot Act”. This act was eventually passed and put into effect. It being passed gave government intelligence agencies the power to intrude into personal lives of Americans. The ability of the U.S. Government to access personal information is immoral in many ways. This would include monitoring online activity, listening to phone conversations by means of wiretap, and monitoring …show more content…
A program called X-KEYSCORE was developed and used by the NSA that provides the “widest reaching” access of information about individual’s online activity. (Regan 36). These certain type of practices could be happening to anyone at any time. The U.S. government justifies these practices by searching for “act of terrorism”. Terrorist organizations wanting to make arrangements by means of email could be easily exploited as well. Email addresses can be disguised as another person or organization in a process called masquerading. (Regan 35). This method would manipulate the sender of the email to make it appear they were communicating with someone else, thus being able to receive highly personal information from anyone they choose. In an article on the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, is pointed out that surveillance technologies…
“invade our private space to gather information which government agents would otherwise be unable to access without an intrusive search of our homes or our bodies” (Simmons …show more content…
It is stated, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” (Barnett 5). In a democratic society that the U.S. was founded on, it should be imperative for the people to able to have a say in the way a government might monitor activity. As stated in the Harvard Law Review, “Democratic societies should prohibit the creation of any domestic surveillance programs whose existence is secret” (Richards 1959). This interpretation of democratic freedom suggests that secrecy among a government is not the essence of democracy