The National Security Agency, known as the NSA, is a government organization that was founded in 1952. They started spying on US citizens after the September 11 attacks, under President Bush, to try to prevent more attacks. Now, the NSA is collecting metadata, the data that is about data, and actual data, so that they can try to stop terrorists and other criminals (“Mass”). Although the NSA is trying to stop the criminals and terrorists, most of the time, they are unsuccessful. The NSA is fundamentally incapable of achieving its goals because of the endless nature of the internet, the incompatibility of the NSA’s actions with its ideals, and the negative stigma that the NSA possesses worldwide. The internet is a global computer network providing …show more content…
The NSA has been known to perform secret activities without the consent of the people. This starts with secret courts. The NSA holds secret courts that are not open to the public. If they want to spy on a specific target with proof against him or her, they don't want their target to know about it. Although their intentions could be good, this makes the people see the NSA as if they have bad intentions. Secondly, when Edward Snowden, a former NSA agent who released top secret files, leaked important files, there was a program revealed called PRISM. This program was used to collect data on all US citizens and more without their consent. Finally, there are records of NSA members flat up lying to congress and committing perjury, which is a crime. John Clapper was one of many NSA officials who lied to congress(Contorno). Senator Ron Wyden asked Clapper ”Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"(Contorno). To this question he replied, “No sir. Not wittingly”(Contorno). Then the meeting moved on and was forgotten about until the Snowden files were released. The NSA’s faults were exposed when these files were made
How would you feel if everything you did on the internet, every text you sent, and every call you made was seen by someone? That is what the NSA is doing right now. According to Wikipedia, the National Security Agency is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence.[1] They have been a controversial topic since the 1970s when it was revealed that they had been wiretapping Americans’ telephones. Their surveillance has only grown since then, even though most Americans disagree with it. [2] The NSA’s domestic surveillance is unconstitutional, ineffective, and a violation of privacy that needs to be stopped.
The National Security Agency or NSA for short is a United States federal government intelligence organization that is used for global monitoring and collecting data. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush implemented the NSA’s domestic spying program to conduct a range of surveillance activities inside the United States. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this program as it allows the NSA to tap into the public’s phone calls, cameras, internet searches, text messages, and many other mediums to seek out individuals that may be potential threats to the security of the general public. Many individuals say that the tactics used by the NSA are unconstitutional as they invade people’s privacy. This is primarily
The NSA is a U.S. intelligence agency responsible for providing the government with information on inner and foreign affairs, particularly for the prevention of terrorism and crime. The NSA maintains several database networks in which they receive private information on American citizens. The agency has access to phone calls, emails, photos, recordings, and backgrounds of practically all people residing in the United States. Started in 1952 by President Harry Truman, the NSA is tasked with the global monitoring and surveillance of targeted individuals in American territory. As part of the growing practice of mass surveillance in the United States, the agency collects and stores all phone records of all American citizens. People argue that this collected information is very intrusive, and the NSA may find something personal that someone may not have wanted anyone to know. While this intrusion's main purpose is to avoid events of terrorism, recent information leaks by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, show that the agency may actually be infringing upon the rights of the American citizen. Whether people like it or not, it seems that the NSA will continue to spy on the people of the United States in an attempt to avert acts of terrorism. Although there are many pros and cons to this surveillance of American citizens, the agency is ultimately just doing its job to protect the lives of the people. Unless a person is actually planning on committing a major crime, there is no real reason for citizens to worry about the NSA and it's invasion of our privacy. The agency is not out to look for embarrassing information about its citizens, rather, only searches for and analyzes information which may lead to the identification of a targe...
The NSA and U.S. government sifting through our private information is but a small inconvenience that we must sacrifice in order to protect our own freedom and safety. Domestic Surveillance roots back to the 1910’s, where the assassination of President McKinley, created a Bureau of Investigation that would trace the efforts of the Communists attempting an uprising in America. This would be the foundings behind Domestic Surveillance in America, and would continue on after World War II where the government created the NSA and CIA, with the main purposes
I am writing to you today to express my concerns over the current NSA spying programs. It is my right at a citizen to share my beliefs about how our government is handling its surveillance. I am a 48-year-old doctor from Oklahoma and I know I am not the only one who has concerns about the government spying on us. Firstly, what the government and NSA is doing is simply illegal. There’s no denying this. They have violated our unalienable right to privacy. The 4th Amendment of our Constitution clearly states that our privacy must not be infringed upon without a warrant. The NSA however is willing and able to monitor anyone they choose without a warrant and without notifying the person they are spying on (ACLU). For me, this poses a real threat
(Whitehead). The NSA has collected masses of raw data from the web throughout the years, data like phone conversations, emails, and other kinds of communications with the consent of the American people. This kind of data collection clearly violates the privacy principles. After the devastating terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bomber, the American people are trading their liberty and freedom and basic human rights, for a phantom of so-called safety.
In early June 2013, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former defense contractor who had access to NSA database while working for an intelligence consulting company, leaked classified documents reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) is recording phone calls of millions of Americans along with gathering private data and spying foreign Internet activity. The Washington Post later broke the news disclosed PRISM, a program can collect data on Internet users. The leaked documents publicly stated a vast objection. Many people were shocked by the scale of the programs, even elected representatives were unaware of the surveillance range. A nationwide debate over privacy rights have been sparked. Although supporters claim that the NSA only does its best to protect the United States from terrorists as well as respecting Americans' rights and privacy, many civil rights advocates feel that the government failed to be clear about the limit of the surveillance programs, threatening Americans' civil...
What Are Your Rights Worth? George Edward Peele III King &Low Heywood Thomas School. National security has been greatly enhanced by the passage of the Patriot Act. The USA PATRIOT Act is an act of Congress that was signed by President Bush in 2001. The title of the act is a ten-letter acronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
The CIA is pretty important to this country, yet some people don’t know what it does. The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is a government agency that as Wikipedia says, “tasked with gathering, processing and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT).” They don’t work much with domestic like the FBI; they do most of their work overseas. It has different divisions such as Analysis, Operations, Support, and Science and Technology (Wikipedia."Central Intelligence Agency"). They have had successful operations for instance locating Osama Bin Laden and arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Monroe et al.). There also some secret operations that have occurred, such as Operation CHAOS, Phoenix Program, and Muammar al-Qaddafi to name a few (Jason). When people find out about these operations it causes them to question events in history that
In 1995, there was great consternation when the Supreme Court ruled that carrying a gun near a school was not interstate commerce. On May 15, 2000, there was great consternation when the Supreme Court ruled that rape was not interstate commerce. It is a sign of how twisted the law has become that each of these common sense rulings was by a narrow 5 to 4 majority.
9/11 was one of the darkest days in America, but some say the government could have been part of these attacks. For many years people have debated about the 9/11 cover up. This theory cannot explain why the government would do this. Once people understand why the 9/11 cover up is fake, they will begin to see the answer to their problem, could the government have done this? This conspiracy theory is wrong because, terrorists admitted to the attacks, so many people died, and there's no evidence against the government.
The American government used to be able to keep the people in happy ignorance to the fact that they watch every move they make. After certain revelations of people like Edward Snowden, the public knows the extent of the government spying. On June 5, 2013 Edward Snowden leaked documents of the NSA to the Guardian (The Guardian 2). The whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the world how the American government collects information like cell phone metadata, Internet history, emails, location from phones, and more. President Obama labeled the man a traitor because he showed the world the illegal acts the NSA performs on US citizens (Service of Snowden 1). The government breached the people’s security, and now the people are afraid because everyone is aware of how the US disapproves of people who do not agree with their programs. Obama said that these programs find information about terrorists living in the US, but he has lit...
Terrorism, it's one of the worst things that can ever happen to mankind. The NSA’s goal is to prevent this horrible threat and save lives. So far the NSA has prevented 54 terrorist attacks around the world. Take a second to think about how many lives have been able to be lived because of this. Many people would say the NSA are stalkers and should not be doing what they're doing, tell that to the thousands of lives that have been saved. As of right now the NSA is monitoring about 200 phone numbers for FBI security. That means you have less than a 1% chance of being monitored. Unless you are a terrorist with evil plots, I highly doubt that the less than 1% of people being “stalked” is you. This is why the NSA is barely an infringement on privacy.
It is reasonable to argue that, governmental institutions or people with authority are subject to withhold a great deal of information from society. Many may argue that secrets are kept to ensure the safety of the nation. Thus, upholding the governmental duty of protecting the nation against possible threats. On the other hand, many believe that secrets may exist which violate our constitutional rights. Over the last year, Edward Snowden, has made headline news for leaking sensitive governmental information to the press. Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old high school drop-out, who was a tech specialist for the National Security Association. Snowden had discovered and later exposed the NSA for monitoring the nations e-mails, phone calls, and internet searches. As the allegations spread like wild fire, Edward Snowden sought asylum in Russia for one year. Snowden had a valid and justifiable reason to expose the NSA to the world because they were in violation of our fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizures. The government called him a traitor, while others viewed him as a hero for exposing the government. Edward Snowden is a whistle blower because he felt that it is up to society to decide if governmental practices are just or unjust. Snowden does “express the highest respect for the law”, and he wanted to protect the right of privacy for American citizens.
There has always been surveillance of the general public conducted by the United States government, the usual justifications being upholding the security of the nation, weeding out those who intend to bring harm to the nation, and more. But the methods for acquiring such information on citizens of the United States were not very sophisticated many years ago, so the impact of government surveillance was not as great. As a result of many technological advancements today, the methods for acquiring personal information - phone metadata, internet history and more - have become much simpler and sophisticated. Many times, the information acquired from different individuals is done so without their consent or knowledge. The current surveillance of people by the United States government is unethical because it is done so without consent and it infringes on a person’s rights to privacy and personal freedom.