The Spying Government - Case Study Example

Lecturer: The Spying Government: Privacy vs Security + Case Study Introduction After the September 11 attacks in the UnitedStates, the Congress passed sweeping legislations that were intended to strengthen the counter-terrorism efforts of the country (Edelbacher, Kratcoski and Theil 387). A number of the most contentious methods including the 2001 PATRIOT Act considerably improved the capacity of the Federal government to gather and assess private information associated with the people of the United States. Supporters are of the argument that the wider surveillance authorities are supposed to unearth and neutralize terrorism threats, while opponents state that the expanded powers encroach on civil liberties. In 2005, the administration under Bush was criticized by the Democrats as well as activist groups after reports from the press revealed the warrantless tapping initiative that had been instigated by the National Security Agency. In 2013, the administration under Obama was also faced with almost the same kind of criticism from various watchdog groups when leakage of its wide domestic surveillance activities conducted by the NSA reached public domains. The episode has reignited arguments over discretion and national security while raising calls for reforms. Thesis statement: Spying is a necessary part of a nation’s defence but should not infringe on the privacy of the citizens. Domestic surveillance under the current administration Two programs by the NSA were leaked in press reports in mid-2013 where in the first one The Guardian revealed a confidential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order that instructed Verizon, which is among the largest telecommunication companies in the United States, to submit the telephone recordings of numerous Americans to the NSA. A different secretive initiative that had been given the code name PRISM, gained access to numerous communication data including audio and video communication, emails as well as pictures and other media from various technology organizations in the United States according to an expose by the Washington Post. Successive leaks publicized details of more initiatives that provided the NSA with far-reaching electronic surveillance tools, domestically and internationally, thereby enabling the government to monitor and track communications that take place between suspected terrorists, civilians as well as friendly heads of state. Amidst disapproval from civil rights campaigners, the present administration in the beginning supported the surveillance initiatives maintaining its legality, limits and efficacy in the prevention of terrorist attacks. According to the National Intelligence, the program did not track phone calls but acquired metadata that was associated with telephony so that it could be queried only in the event that there is a realistic suspicion of connections to a foreign terrorist group. There is likelihood of the White House depending on the Patriot’s Act, Section 215, which is a provision that allows the government to oblige any entity to surrender tangible things as long as these are needed for investigating, defending against global terrorism or acts of spying. The NSA considers its surveillance as a program that assists in the prevention of numerous terrorists and is ready to take part in the debates that touch on the lawfulness of the program. Domestic surveillance under the current administration After the events of September 11, the administration under President George Bush decided against seeking approval FISC prior to the interception of international communication within and outside the United States of individuals who were associated with Al-Qaeda or those connected to other terrorist organizations all over the world (Murrin 1106). The special secret court that has been established in 1978 after spying abuses in the country by the previous administrations was intended to function as a non-partisan overseer in permitting government agencies to engage in surveillance. After the activities of the NSA were publicized by the New York Times in 2005, it was argued that the then president George Bush had legal constitutional and congressional authority to instigate unwarranted surveillance on the people living in the United States who were reasonably believed to be associated with the Al-Qaeda (Fine et al. 1). When use of military force was authorized in 2011 without any significant mention of wiretapping, the president was granted wide authority to use all the required force in fighting the countries, groups or individuals he considers as planned, authorized, committed of assisted in commission of terrorist attacks. According to officers in the government, this included the authority to clandestinely collect information on Al-Qaeda and assemblages linked to it domestically. The administration under President Bush emphasized that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was an outmoded legislation which was too time-consuming in regard to the threat environment that had evolved. The NSA initiative was considered as a timely cautionary system that was characterized by a military setting requiring rapidity and alertness by the officers in the administration. The administration also maintained that the program did not focus on domestic surveillance but intended to monitor terrorists outside the country, while publicly calling the operation a Terrorist Surveillance Program. Nevertheless, the opponents and critics of the program considered it as domestic spying (Shearer and Gutmann). In his main reason, Edward Snowden, who was a previous CIA and NSA contactor who disclosed information of the initiatives associated with the NSA, raised apprehensions over public freedoms (Welch 28). He stated that the NSA had developed infrastructure that permitted it to capture most of the communications that took place and based on this capacity, the huge majority of communications between humans is directly ingested without targeting (Landau 66). According to this information, the emails and phone calls of numerous people could be easily accessed through intercepts. Challenges to the domestic surveillance policy Both the Republican as well as the Democratic legislators has suggested that the surveillance powers that are held by the government should be re-evaluated after the activities that are carried out by the NSA were disclosed. Some of the top ranking senators are in support of the requests for congressional hearings regarding the NSA surveillance regardless of their support for other controversial programs. These senators asked the White House to explain the magnitude to which the NSA programs monitor Americans. Critics have developed the allegation that even if these programs operate under the guidance of the law, as the current administration states, they are in violation of the intention of the law as well as the values that are associated with a democratic society. Some of the activists that support civil liberties called for a comprehensive review of various provisions that exist in the Patriot Act as well as the FISA Amendments Act which allow the controversial surveillance authority (Barilleaux and Kelley 175). Advocates of civil liberties question if the surveillance programs by the government are in violation of the Fourth amendment to the Constitution that defines the rights of the citizens should be safeguarded in their individuals, homes, papers as well as effects against arbitrary searches and seizures, should not be dishonoured and no warrants are supposed to issue, except where there is probable cause that describes the location that is supposed to be combed and the items or people who are supposed to be seized (Potter 1850). A taskforce under the Obama administration released findings that recommended numerous changes to the surveillance practice that is currently in place. Considerable proposed reforms included, stopping the indiscriminate gathering of telephony metadata and necessitating authorities to get hold of a court order to probe this information that is not in public domain. The taskforce also suggested that new restrictions should be placed on the surveillance of foreign leaders as well as ordinary people who were not American citizens and the support of newer technologies and standards. However, legal experts state that even though the commendations, if effected will need more evaluation of the monitoring activities from the executive, congress and judiciary, they may only terminate few initiatives. Conclusion Confidential government documents that were published by the media in 2013, confirmed that they NSA gathers full copies of all the communication that is carried in the main domestic fiber optic cable networks. The media, led by The Guardian and Washington Post began publishing a sequence of articles together with full government documents that inveterate what had been reported in 2005 and 2006 (Wright and Kreissl 7). These reports demonstrated and later the government own up to the wide-scale collection of telephony metadata of all the United States subscribers under the pretext of the Patriot Act. Furthermore, the reports from the media confirm that the government is gathering and assessing the content of communication people outside the country talking to people within the borders even without probable causes. Works cited Barilleaux, Ryan J, and Christopher S Kelley. The Unitary Executive And The Modern Presidency. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2010. Print. Edelbacher, Max, Peter C Kratcoski, and Michael Theil. Financial Crimes. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2012. Print. Fine, Glenn A et al. Unclassified Report On The Presidents Surveillance Program. Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Information Center, 2009. Print. Landau, Susan. Making Sense From Snowden: Whats Significant In The NSA Surveillance Revelations. IEEE Secur. Privacy 11.4 (2013): 54-63. Web. Murrin, John M. Liberty, Equality, Power. Australia: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Potter, Will. Green Is The New Red. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2011. Print. Shearer, Jenny, and Peter Gutmann. Government, Cryptography, And The Right To Privacy. Journal of universal computer science 2.3 (2014): n. pag. Print. Welch, D. Don. A Guide To Ethics And Public Policy. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2014. Print. Wright, David, and Reinhard Kreissl. Surveillance In Europe. London: Routledge, 2015. Print. Read More