Barack Obama: Privacy for Freedom

In May of 2013, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, confiscated several sensitive security documents having to do with confidential government activities that had to do with as described by news outlet Aljazeera America (AA), “…an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) requiring Verizon to hand over metadata from millions of Americans' phone calls to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the NSA” (AA). Snowden then later released these documents to British news outlet, The Guardian. The Guardian, then later with Snowden’s permission released the documents on June 6th, 2013 to the general public. After a substantial amount of outcry and distain from the majority of the American public, President Obama later gave a speech on January 17th, 2014 to discuss the new NSA reforms with security of the nation and to address the publics’ newly kindled anger.

With release of the NSA documents and the outcries of many Americans, President Obama and the White House had to approach this situation carefully. When preparing this speech they had to take some factors into consideration one being who will the President be primarily addressing. That being said, when the President was giving the speech he may have been addressing the security agencies such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), but also the audience whom Obama had directed his speech toward was not only the security agencies and their employees civilian population of the United States. The civilian population meaning the various sections of the population that is not a part of the security workforce. For his presidential address, President Obama and his staff had to also take into account that the masses h...

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...acrifices must be made to ensure that we are continually able to have these freedoms that we enjoy. Even if that sacrifice means the NSA knows your internet history, e-mails, or text messages.

Works Cited

Board, Editorial. "Grading President Obama’s NSA Speech." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 Jan. 2014. Web. 8 May 2014.

Eaton, Joshua. "Timeline of Edward Snowden's Revelations | Al Jazeera America." Timeline of Edward Snowden's Revelations | Al Jazeera America. Ed. Ben Piven. Aljazeera America, n.d. Web. 8 May 2014.

Obama, Barack. “National Security Agency Reforms.” U.S. Dept. of Justice. Washington, D.C. January 7, 2014. Federal News Service. Transcript. Web. April 2, 2014.

Sanger, David E., and Charlie Savage. "Analysis of Obama's N.S.A. Speech." The Caucus Analysis of Obamas NSA Speech Comments. New York Times, 14 Jan. 2014. Web. 9 May 2014.