Civil Liberties And The Biggest Challenges For The Intelligence Community

Today, electronic surveillance remains one of the most effective tools the United States has to protect against foreign powers and groups seeking to inflict harm on the nation, but it does not go without a few possessing a few negative aspects either. Electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence has likely saved the lives of many innocent people through prevention of potential acts of aggression towards the United States. There are many pros to the actions authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) pertaining to electronic surveillance, but there are also cons. Looking at both the pros and cons of electronic surveillance is important in understanding the overall effectiveness of FISA. [1]

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to ever pass through the US Senate. Its critics use fear mongering tactics to scare people into opposition of an intrusive police state which they believe is inevitable given the government’s new powers. They consider the Act an assault on civil liberties and an invasion of the privacy of innocent American citizens. Yet the real issue is not that the government now has new powers, it’s that the American people do not trust our intelligence agencies to handle these new powers properly while still respecting their rights.

Congress has for a long time has tried in various ways to oversee the intelligence community which have shown to be sometime controversial, and a very difficult responsibility. What make this task so hard is the secrecy and sensitivity intelligence information finding, the sources, and the methods in which the information is obtain. Congressional oversight has evolved since the mid-1970s and a lot more since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The critics about Congressional oversight by some as being inadequate, ineffective, or worse, while at the same time proposal that was made in the 9/11 commission report was met with challenges from within the Legislature Branch and from the Executive Branch

The law enforcement agencies and the government are given wide discretionary powers to acquire information not only from suspected people but also from the law-abiding Americans. After attacks of September, 11, the nation 's top most priority is to defend its citizen from the terrorists using all information in the areas of finances, religious organizations, health etc. The law focuses on improving the counterterrorism efforts of intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the United States. It is pertinent to mention that civil freedom of American citizens is not only important during wartimes but also in the period of peace, as such the Patriot

It has been more than seventy years since the release of George Orwell’s 1984, a novel that imparts a lesson on the consequences of government overreach. However, today that novel reads like an exposé of government surveillance. Privacy and national security are two ideas competing for value on a balance; if one is more highly valued, the other carries less weight. Government desire to bolster national security by spying on its own citizens-- even the law abiding ones-- is what leads to the inverse relationship between civil liberties and security. In times of a perceived threat to the nation, national security becomes highly prized and people lose privacy. One case is terrorist attacks. 9/11 caused an understandable kneejerk reaction in Americans to bolster protection. Some of the the measures taken were observable, like greater security at airports, but others attempted to increase national security in a more intrusive way. Privacy should be more highly valued than national security, and America has reached a point where that is no longer true.

The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 showed the vulnerabilities of this country as a whole, reflecting the lack of attention this nation gave to terrorism. Following September 11th, it was clear that drastic preventative measures needed to be taken in order to avoid reoccurrence of a destructive and deadly act of terrorism (Simon, 2009). As a response to the attacks, The Patriot Act was passed in October of 2001 in order to give federal agencies a substantial increase in power in accessing, monitoring, and examining records and citizens who have been identified as, or could potentially be, risks to this country. This act also allowed federal agents to single out and watch potential individuals labeled as terrorists without evidence linking them to an actual terrorist organization, as well as allowing for an increase in wiretapping phones of potential suspects (Banks, 2010).

After the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, an American public was shocked, flabbergasted, and lost for words for the first time since Pearl Harbor. Out of these fears the PATRIOT act was conceived; promising to help stop future terrorist plots the bill was initially met with high praise from the public and media. It was not for another decade that the side-effects of the patriot act were revealed to the world. The American public was appalled at the circumvention of their fourth Amendment rights. Still there is a clear divide between those who believe that the National Security Agency Is not violating the constitution and what they are doing is good for the betterment of the country and those who believe that their privacy and undeniable American freedoms were violated in part of the NSA spying with both parties bringing their own views and ideals to the field. The September eleventh attacks were the beginning of the end of privacy for American citizens the PATRIOT act which was signed a month later granted full access to the phones and computers of the people. It took over a decade for the public to become aware of the illegal spying that the NSA had conducted. The NSA spying is a complicated and controversial matter while there have been several judicial courts that have ruled against the spying there has also been just as many cases of the court 's finding the spying constitutional.

Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an area in Pennsylvania, in which nearly 3,000 helpless individuals were killed, the U.S. Congress began to pass legislation that would strengthen the United State’s counterterrorism efforts. Less than a month after the horrific attack, the National Security Agency (NSA) started a “special collection program” with intentions to track communications among suspected terrorists and Al Qaeda leaders. Then on October 4, 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to monitor domestic communications in order to track down suspected terrorists. Two problems shortly arose from Bush’s decision: the fact that his authorization to NSA was carried out in secret and also that monitoring the domestic communications was done without a warrant. This proved to be illegal since the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act states that the government is prohibited from eavesdropping inside the United States without first getting a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court). In order to counteract the issues he had caused, on October 26, 2001 Bush signed the Patriot Act; a law that would expand the government’s electronic surveillance powers. After signing this law Bush stated, “The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including emails, the

Spying on American citizens is now a common method employed by the government striving to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, since its incorporation, the Act has been controversial as politicians and citizens alike have argued between the need to keep society safe and abusive powers of the government over its citizens. Although, mandated to serve as

Since the introduction of the USA-Patriot Act after 9-11, and with the current and continuous looming threat of terrorism, America has been on the breach of whether the intelligence community is taking advantages and using these to dilute our civil liberties. The tension between civil liberties and Homeland Security is really complex, throw in immigration policy, criminal law, First Amendment and others and it is a recipe for disaster to Americans. We as Americans cherish our civil liberties and believe that because of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that these liberties are protected from and by the Government and are not going to surrender them lightly or compromise them unless it is absolutely necessary, and if then for only a

Since the birth of America the United States has made the use of intelligence known through the purposes of warfare, defense, and diplomacy. Intelligence is the gathering of information which is analyzed and converted into data to serve as an asset to the decision making process. This is possible by identifying what the national interest is at the time. We use intelligence to provide information based off everyday observations and activities to give us a sense of patterns to form an idea of the “big picture” and identify what threats may be imminent at the time. With reference to Homeland Security Intelligence is not to solely acquire life threatening data, rather than should be to analyzes and share information between the private sector,

The United States has a set of political institutions empowered to, among other things, defend the nation's common good. Defending the common good requires espionage and other forms of state secrecy. In the post-9/11 world — a world in which we know that terrorists, acting independently from governments, will do everything in their power to inflict maximum, indiscriminate harm on the United States and its citizens — defending the common good will require a degree of domestic as well as foreign surveillance. [The Week]

Intelligence was known about the terrorist locations. The article by Jones brings attention to the laws of government agencies sharing information between themselves. In reference to the 9/11 Commission Report it was recommended that more sharing of information take place. Suggesting that this would allow agencies to work together more cohesively. Allowing a larger spectrum to be aware of important aspects of watched individuals, groups, cells, militia, etc. The author, Jones, outlines advantages of agencies both local, state, and federal working together. He puts insight on the history of sharing information before 9/11, and after September 11th. The changes that were brought as a result of the attacks are reviewed as well. Each individual intelligence agency can be applauded for the information they have individually collected. The information is sorted, stored, and then becomes what? A notch in the belt of the agency? A job well done of sorts. “The 9/11 Commission Report recommended there be “unity of effort” in the sharing of intelligence” (Jones, 2011).

Mass surveillance seemed like a reasonable solution after the terrorist attack of September 11. Analyzing communication and access to private data would put the intelligence agencies at a vantage point, but today, the solution has itself become a problem. Givens stated that “After a terrorist attack, creating laws quickly to contend with terrorism is reasonable and appropriate. It is equally reasonable and appropriate, however, to build hedges into those laws to guard against unsound initial judgments or assumptions”() The lawmakers failed to build the ‘hedge’ and we now have an uncontrolled surveillance

Data can be collected through human sources, satellites, wiretapping, signals, and internet traffic. However, intelligence organizations must be in compliance with the law to ensure that they are not illegally collecting information (Chesney, 2012). Collection occurs because a threat is likely to occur or agencies are trying to find out what information our foreign adversaries possess about the nation’s assets. Intelligence collection occurs in both domestic and foreign territories. Intelligence agencies collect information about foreign adversaries in order to exploit their weaknesses or vulnerabilities (Gentry, 2008). Furthermore, government agencies and political leaders want to discover which of the nation’s assets are seen as vulnerable to the enemy (Gentry, 2008).