Government Monitoring Government

"In the United States and other countries around the world, our governments are hard at work creating laws, commanding a military, and just keeping the country running smoothly in general. But there are some aspects of people's lives that the topic of government involvement is still up for discussion. One of the most controversial aspects is how much, if at all, our governments should monitor our internet. Some say that the government should get out of their personal lives, while others feel the need for the monitoring to keep them, and others, out of trouble. I don’t think that there is just one simple answer. It all depends on the situation of each individual citizen.

Let’s take a look at the facts that we already know. We know that

everything we do online is tracked and monitored by the NSA, FBI, and CIA, thanks to Edward Snowden. They keep digital logs of all of us.

No matter how many times you try to delete an email or text, it is always still out there somewhere. This is a huge violation of privacy, but in some aspects it does keep us safe. That’s why this is such a controversial matter. Warrantless search and surveillance is against the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (No search and seizure without a warrant, which can be granted because of probable cause). This may all seem like it is against the best interest of the people and their happiness, but we must realize that this is to keep us all safe, and each individual person will have a different opinion of how this should be handled. For example, most teenagers are going to most likely be opposed to the NSA getting into all their private lives because it’s just human nature. Nobody is comfortable when someone is watching what they do over their shoulder. We all deserve our privacy when asked for it. But on the contrary, a parent of said teenagers might want all the previously stated organizations to keep doing their surveillance because it will keep their kid out of trouble. Both sides are valid reasons. Both make sense for the age group. It's not a black and white answer. There is a lot of grey. These two points aren’t

the only arguments to be made on this topic, however. Coming from a whole different point of view, one might say that the government should use these powers of surveillance to find the threats outside of our borders and eliminate them before the come into our own country. We need to be proactive as a nation and our agencies. But the counter I would say to this is that it’s already too late for that. The threats are already here inside our borders. Just look at 9/11, or any of the other, more recent, terror attacks where the assailants pledged allegiance to some outside force. We should focus on protecting our home soil before we go out and get involved in other countries.
The right amount of government involvement is a topic that we will most likely never come to a set conclusion on. People will always have their opposing opinions on issues likes this. Right now we aren’t looking for the best way to run it, we are looking for the way that has the least amount of flaws. The lesser of many evils. The people need to understand the situation that the government has been put in, and realize that complaining isn’t going to help anything. The citizens need to be flexible and cooperative for this all to work out.
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