Government Surveillance

When we think of surveillance we think that the government wants to keep us safe. That they want the best for our protection. But what most people don't realize is that these phones that we carry around and communicate with people are being heard everyday by someone who's sitting in a chair listening to your conversation, and cameras that see our every move and action in a public placing. Just like Big Brother in the George Orwell novel 1984. Big Brother is the surveillance agency to keep people in line and to have them trust and respect the civil liberties of their state Oceania.

Ever since the American public was made aware of the United States government’s surveillance policies, it has been a hotly debated issue across the nation. In 2013, it was revealed that the NSA had, for some time, been collecting data on American citizens, in terms of everything from their Internet history to their phone records. When the story broke, it was a huge talking point, not only across the country, but also throughout the world. The man who introduced Americans to this idea was Edward Snowden.

The US government needs to find a happy medium when it comes to surveillance. According to the ACLU, “Our Constitution and democratic system demand that the government be transparent and accountable to the people, not the other way around” (ACLU 1). Of course the government needs to protect the people, but at the same time the government needs to respect the privacy of its constituents. The government is violating the people’s rights to things such as rights to privacy, free speech, due process, and association (ACLU 1). These rights have been paid for through the blood and personal sacrifice of many brave men and women throughout American history. These rights cannot be surrendered so that the government’s job can be made easier. Security is important, but the rights of Americans are too hefty of a price to pay for it. Privacy, free speech, due process, and association are critical components of American society and without it, Americans’ lives and democracy are undermined. (Russel 3)

Recent scandals involving the NSA and reports about the government’s use of surveillance technology have called the current ethics of maintaining public security into question. These events have caused us to ask what our privacy is worth in an age of global terrorism. Orwell’s warning that totalitarian regimes’ reliance on surveillance and the invasion of privacy to restrict individual freedom and endanger citizens is still relevant today. Although the invasion of privacy is sometimes necessary to ensure the security of citizens, it may cause people to question the legitimacy of their government’s programs surrounding surveillance.

I have being hear that Big Brother is watching you for a long time, I always thought it was the crazy people that believe that until reading this section of the book. You are being watched, listened to and monitored through your computer, phone, and TV. Since technology is involved with new apps and people are using for everything within their daily lives. Surveillance, spies has been around for many years. People have written book about government surveillance or how the government has spies public to get information about the attack or other information.

In today’s society we are being watched way too much. Some of the times we are being watched, we know about it and other times, we don’t. The government, with a few clicks of a button, can watch what websites you go to, your text messages, even the pictures you send to your grandmother last Christmas, without your knowledge of them doing so. They hold too much power over surveillance of U.S. citizens. There are plenty of incidents where the NSA (National Security Agency) was caught taking files of citizens’ messages,

We live in a world of ever growing technology. A world more connected than ever before in human history and no one saw it coming even a few decades ago. In that short time, we have seen a world more connected, one where everyone can know nearly anything about anyone and everything. It also means that there is more potential for someone to be watching us at almost all times without our knowing. This can be done through the internet or through what most usually think of when thinking of surveillance, cameras. Surveillance can be done by anyone who truly wants to do it. It is usually done by big internet corporations like Google, for example, who collects the data of their users all the time and by governments. In this essay, I’ll be focusing on the United States government’s use of surveillance through cameras, their collection of data of the very people they are meant to serve and how that poses a great threat to individual freedom and privacy.

Our society is dystopian in that we are being watched by the government. The governments surveillance ranges from cameras to electronics to even emails. We are told that this constant surveillance is for our safety and to make it a safe environment for us because their main reason is to protect us when in fact it may not be their true intentions. Surveillance has been a problem in our society because people think that there’s too much cameras which it’s not necessary. People feel like they are constantly being watched. This increase in surveillance makes us question if the government is collecting of information for their own good.

After 9/11, the day many people lost their loved ones or were injured in the terrorist

The issue was brought to life in the public’s mind in June of 2013, when a contractor for the National Security Agency Edward Snowden leaked classified information about how the NSA had created programs that surveilled on private citizens. One such NSA program, and perhaps many people tend to have heard more about out of the different NSA surveillance program is the program that is called PRISM. PRISM is a program that the NSA used to collected data from the servers of major telecommunications company, companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Skype, and etc (NSA). The logic behind Prism is that according to the NSA since most telecommunications at some point went through the United States, then a person the NSA was potentially targeting could therefore have their communications flowing inside the United States, at some point at which point Prism could be used to intercept that data from the target and then from there slowly build up data upon the target (NSA). In term of what is being collected by PRISM, it is essentially all forms of telecommunications, email, text messages, videos, stored data and etc in real time so as to keep the information collected as up to date as possible. PRISM isn’t the only so called mass surveillance program in the

secretive means under the guise of national security. One of these ways is through a sweeping

When most people leave the house everyday they are not considering the multiple ways they are being monitored. They are not contemplating whether the personal e-mail they just sent using their company’s seemingly secure private e-mail service is being screened by their employers or whether their banking activity is being monitored for patterns aligned with terrorism. Many would assume that simply having a password to access your e-mail would keep out unwelcome eyes. With technology becoming such an increasingly important aspect of our daily lives, personal and work related, many are starting to debate whether or not it is correct for an employer or the government to be able to access someone’s personal information. This includes, but is not limited to, as outlined in Charles J. Sykes essay, medical information, personal e-mail correspondence, social media account information, a person’s voice mail, what you have stored on your computer, and your credit reports (Sykes 19). Some argue that this is an infringement on a person’s right to privacy while others argue that businesses and government officials have the right and need to monitor personal information.

Government surveillance relies heavily on the use of technology. The debate over privacy and government surveillance started in 2008 with the FISA Amendment Act, which expanded the government’s authority to monitor American’s electronic communication (Domestic Surveillance). According to Domestic Surveillance, “the law authorized surveillance of foreign nationals outside the United States—not of Americans—and that it included robust safeguards to protect Americans' privacy.” However, the source also states that “Despite government officials' claims to the contrary, the NSA is building a growing database of Americans' international telephone calls and emails.” Anytime an American citizen makes an international call or sends an email, the National Security Agency observes, infringing on a person’s privacy, not protecting U.S. citizens. Technological surveillance has become even more rampant with the use of cameras as “police can use

“More Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the federal government agency program that as part of its efforts to investigate terrorism obtained records from U.S. telephone and Internet companies to ‘compile telephone call logs and Internet communications.’” (“Preface to ‘How Should Government Surveillance Be Regulated?”). Many Americans feel that their rights are being taken away due to government surveillance. Investigating terrorism is not a justifiable reason to invade the privacy of innocent individuals. There are more innocent people than not when it comes to terrorism, so the government search is doing more evil than virtue. Visualize your texts, emails, and other sorts of private information being searched through without warrant or your own permission. In other words, government surveillance is harmful because it increases the risk of criminal theft, deprives people of their privacy, and targets the innocent.

A dominating issue with government surveillance is the invasion of privacy. The right of privacy is granted to every citizen of the United States through the fourth amendment; however, this does not stop government surveillance programs from violating it. An example of this would-be emails, which by law are protected from searches without warrants by the fourth amendment, but last year, according to the article Yahoo helps the government read your emails. Just following orders, they say. by Margret Sullivan, the author claims that the government was granted access to users’ emails and built a machine that was used to “scan all of its users’ incoming emails for specific characters or words.” (par. 4) This means that if you happened to