Post 9/11 Privacy Rights: The Case Against Electronic Surveillance In response to concerns about terrorism after the attacks on September 11,2001, the government of the United States enacted new guidelines for conducting surveillance on the public. This paper will discuss the implementation of electronic surveillance as a tool to combat terrorism and will make the case against sweeping electronic surveillance of American citizens and others in this country. Various examples of increased surveillance along with decreasing privacy right will help the reader to conclude that these tactics have not reduced incidents of any type of crime, including terrorism. This paper will also discuss several types of electronic surveillance, including the collection of metadata from telephone records, which intruded on the private lives of citizens and did not increase their safety in any meaningful way.…
In The United States of America the National Security Agency has been working for ages to assure that the country is safe, but recently it has become a rising concern that they have overstepped their boundaries of American citizen’s privacy by operating surveillance technology all around the country and storing data form every phone call of citizens. With the American Citizens’ privacy at stake, each branch of government took its stand against the matter. The Judicial Branch has to come up with a legal compromise; the Legislative Branch and Congress are working to make surveillance laws that would better please its citizens, and the Executive Branch and the president have agreed to come up with an alternative to Section 215 of The Patriot Act. The Supreme Court has to establish a legal compromise to the surveillance of the American citizens considering it was said that what the National Security Agency/Central Security was doing went against Section 215 of the Patriot Act.…
(Clench 2013) The program is referred by the Bush administration as the terrorist surveillance program which is a subprogram of the more extensive President’s Surveillance Program. Under this program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to surveil, without any search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (browsing, e-mail, chats, etc.), text messages,…
FISA is also mandated with collection of foreign intelligence which keeps the authorities up to date and on the lookout for external threats against the US. The coordinated efforts by DOJ and FBI have seen the war against terror minimize and has led to effective foreign intelligence gathering of information. Electronic surveillance allows the US to obtain intelligence surveillance on foreign powers such as spies or agents with a connection to international terrorism groups. The Act significantly maintained top secrets for national security matters at the same time providing essential oversight of the judiciary and congress.…
The attacks on September 11, 2001 instilled great fear in the government as well as millions of Americans. In order to protect ourselves and prevent future terrorists attacks, President George W. Bush signed a bill called The USA Patriot Act which allowed government agencies such as The National Security Agency access to anything they needed to intercept acts of terrorism. The NSA then gained the power to wiretap individual’s phones,obtain their business records and spy on anyone they deemed could be suspected of terrorism. It was a time of panic for the United States, and these excessive searches without warrants weren’t given a second thought. However, it is now 2014 and citizen’s privacy is still being compromised more than ever without…
The Impacts of the USA-PATRIOT ACT on American Society Dung Pham Valencia College This paper was prepared for U.S Government course taught by Professor Michaela Fazecas “Why are there so many recording devices on the street?” Has this kind of question ever crossed your mind? Have you ever asked yourself when you have to take off your shoes and electrical devices and step into a scanning box at the airport? The answer is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA-PATRIOT ACT). The USA-PATRIOT ACT is proposed and quickly passed by the Congress after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.…
The NSA’s primary way of fighting terrorism, as previously noted, was through the collection and surveillance of every citizens’ communications data – known as “The Program” according to the documentary. However, not only is “The Program” unconstitutional and illegal, it has also proven to be less than helpful in contributing to the counter-terrorism efforts. While several top government officials – including President Obama, former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Cheney, former NSA Chief Michael Hayden, and others – claim that many threats have been averted thanks to “The Program,” a report found, according to Anna Mulrine, that “traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided…for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal…playing an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases” (Mulrine, Anna). She goes on, with a quote from a source saying “’it can’t justify the gathering of these millions of records when it can be done another way where the government doesn’t have to obtain all of that information’” (Mulrine, Anna).…
The NSA is a military program that searches telephones, emails, text messages and other technologies to help prevent terrorist attacks. The NSA has been around for a large part of America and has since grown to be a strong military advantage but…
With this collected data, the United States government can monitor internet users. These technological advancements, along with the rising fear of terrorism and international crime, has led to the surveillance of many innocent American citizens. The United States government can easily collect information about anyone, with little or no judicial supervision. For example, in 2008, the FBI sought out a robbery suspect, and, without a warrant, collected information on the suspect along with 180 other…
Prior to the enactment of the Patriot Act, law enforcement and intelligence agencies immensely lacked the ability to share information. The effectiveness, improvement and development among the intelligence operations was initiated when all aspects of government were synchronized, positively impacting the scope and quality of our national security, leading to endless possibilities. The USA Patriot Act of 2001, significantly changed the fundamental framework for the federal law enforcement, which was immediately passed following the aftermath of the September terrorism attacks. Expanding security level consequentially elevated a questionable defensive behavior in efforts to protect the nations civil liberties.…
“Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn't be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet,” stated Gary Kovacs the president of several software companies (Kovacs). However, since the implementation of the Patriot Act in 2001, the loss of American privacy is one of the many results of the new set of revised laws that have been rewritten to give the government more freedom in observing our electronic fingerprint (“Surveillance Under the Patriot Act”). In their hurry to act on the tragedy of 9/11, Congress passed the Act a mere 45 days of the event, with little to no debate. The result of it’s ratification, was a drastic change in the surveillance laws and restrictions of the federal government (“End Mass Surveillance Under the Patriot…
Edward snowden is a computer professional that is famously known for leaking information on the U.S. National Security Agency in 2013. Snowden said in an interview that “ The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything that is uses telecommunications.”(www.cfr.org). This infrastructure collects data all around the United States. This is private information that is being collected without our consent or a warrant being present. The Obama Administration defended the surveillance program saying “ it 's legal, limited and effective with preventing terrorist acts” (www.cfr.org).…
The patriot act allows the government the right to check and monitor technology for the purpose of preventing terrorist activities. However, the government could be doing more than just preventing the act of terrorism. This act can also be referred to as, ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate…
Most critics of surveillance argue about how it is an abuse of power, a violation of people 's privacy, and most importantly, unconstitutional, while proponents of surveillance claim the benefit of surveillance is a reduction in the probability of high-cost events such as terrorism. Government surveillance programs, when conducted in controlled situations and closely audited by independent organizations, do not directly harm innocent civilians, especially when they benefit the safety of the general public. Surveillance, by definition, is the act of carefully watching someone or something especially in order to prevent or detect a crime. If that definition was used when discussing the issue of government surveillance, most public safety activities,…
The Obama years have accelerated the use of these systems and brought forth the dilemma where people working for the government started to question the authority and rights of the government for the people. This increase in data collection and these programs has led to some agents from these programs to go out in public and release information. The most recent figure is known as Edward Snowden. Due to Snowden’s leaks and many others starting to pop up, it has brought forth political obligation into question. More people are becoming aware of the practices that are occurring and thanks to his attempts governments around the world have started to show more of the information that they are collecting and what they are doing with it.…