September 11, 2001 is the day known by many as the nation’s largest terrorist attack since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Unfortunately, many people, particularly younger millennials, across the nation don’t really know most of the details of what happened on that tragic day. Many of those same people also don’t know how much the attacks have impacted several important aspects of our nation’s federal government. Specifically, over the past decade and a half, the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks have caused our federal government to become increasingly similar to the dystopian government depicted in George Orwell’s 1984, where there is absolutely no privacy, and the government watches your every move. Of course, our government
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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). Trevor Timm of The Guardian adds to this, saying “analysts would search over 17,000 phone numbers…every day. It turns out only about 1,800 of those numbers – 11 percent – met the legal requirement that the NSA have ‘reasonable articulable suspicion’ that the number was involved in terrorism” (Timm, Trevor). Both the NSA and President Obama have claimed repeatedly that the NSA has not abused its power, yet a “FISA court
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). Trevor Timm of The Guardian adds to this, saying “analysts would search over 17,000 phone numbers…every day. It turns out only about 1,800 of those numbers – 11 percent – met the legal requirement that the NSA have ‘reasonable articulable suspicion’ that the number was involved in terrorism” (Timm, Trevor). Both the NSA and President Obama have claimed repeatedly that the NSA has not abused its power, yet a “FISA court