Domestic surveillance or spying on Americans by government - Essay Example

?Question Domestic surveillance has been conducted by the US government under the NSA, one of the departments of defense, on its citizens. The public realized this was happening after information leaked to public by one of the former intelligence agents Edward Snowden. According to Risen and Lichtblau (1), former US president George Bush authorized surveillance on its citizens without confirmation from the courts. In the law, courts must approve such cases before granting authority to the government to take action. The intelligence agency took on and started spying all the phone calls and emails made domestically and internationally calls. Rule (1) points out that surveillances conducted by the government and private firms is for their own benefit because they use the information to interact with the persons. The government wants to get information like family information, the level of wealth, their locations or residences and their political system. With all this information at hand, the government’s work would be easy. For example the government would know where to get taxes, they laws which can support the population and what the government can expect from the population. Additionally, information obtained from the records of persons going for medical checkups or patients going for treatment would be important in the future and will be easily accessed. This was according to the Bush Administration that pushed for centralization and the creation of a single system where information and records of patients would be stored and easily obtained anywhere at any time. The government would want to provide security hence protecting them from criminals, traffic offences committed by reckless drivers and it would want to know the number of illegal immigrants in the country (Rule 41). John Yoo argued that the amendment in the constitution regarding privacy should not be followed by the intelligence and the military when dealing with cases of surveillance. Yoo further explained that terrorist acts should be cracked down. That is, the constitution will not be followed by the military when dealing with such cases because they will have access various phone calls, emails and chats by different people. Additionally, they would need the court to grant a warrant for the monitoring body to access the information. He further explained that the law sometimes fails to guarantee security to the population. This is evident sometimes when cops arrest and charge wrong persons or obtain authority to conduct searches in places. From this case, Mr.Yoo gave the concept of the error rate; he argued that it should be lowered as much as possible when conducting surveillance (Yoo). Question 2 The surveillance conducted on citizens has shown that privacy in this century is not taken seriously. Private information, which is meant to be secret, has been brought to public. This has been made easy with the ever-increasing technology and innovation of sophisticated components that the government and private firms can use for spying. The disclosure and use of private information has made governments come up with ways and policies of guarding information from being exploited and getting into the wrong hands. According to West (1), Edward Snowden leaked information to the public regarding NSA surveillance of its citizens. The information provided by Snowden shows that the government was monitoring phone calls inclusive of locations and destinations of the calls. Additionally, surveillance was conducted 5 years without the knowledge of the citizens. The government took a stand to explain to its citizen that surveillances conducted were meant for security reasons. Evidence also arises from what Snowden’s information to the public that the government was using utilities like boundless informant. The tool is said to be used by the NSA for tracking down the sources of information collected. A number of hacking attempts by the US government as claimed by Snowden was conducted in Chinese institutions such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The Chinese government confronted the U.S. government demanding to know the hacking missions conducted on their institutions. NSA lost its power to obtain more information from the U.S. citizens after Edward Snowden revealed that the government was spying on them (Ackerman 1). The NSA collects approximately 75% of information on the Internet and phone calls. NSA works with phone companies whereby the company routes traffic to the NSA where they could monitor information believed to contain intelligence reports (McCarter 1). Question 3 The government has been criticized by politicians and civil rights bodies because of the steps taken to monitor information exchanged by citizens and foreigners. The Republicans have been calling for further reviews of this act because government bodies like the NSA might be going beyond the required point to collect information. The critics claim that American citizens have democratic rights and the law regarding privacy of citizens is not exercised (Masters and Bruno 1). The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, argues that the government has gone too far by taking away the freedom of expression and encroaching on private life. This has prompted some of these rights group to expose and inform the public of domestic surveillance taking place and that have taken place before (American Civil Liberties Union). Additionally, personal privacy is the main factor that has had effect due to surveillances done by the government. This is because the government has been keeping information about individuals that they consider threatening to national security. The government goes further to state the organizations where such people are working on to collect more information (Jackson 72). According to Betts (168), privacy is the most important aspect in personal life, which is a fact that the government must consider when monitoring his citizens. However, the author explains that if the government does not engage in surveillance on its citizens, terror groups might take this advantage to secretly conduct their terrorism activities. This is because the government will not have the authority to conduct surveillance on its citizens; the rights to privacy bar them. The problem with information collected from the people is that such information can be accessed, exchange and stored for a long time. Eventually, this will make the person on which the information was collected from to be viewed from the wrong perspective despite the fact that person might have changed. Trouble does occur also because of the changes in technology and the change has made it easy to access stored information with simple procedures. Works Cited Ackerman Spencer, FISA Judge: Snowden's NSA Disclosures Triggered Important Spying Debate, The Guardian, 2013. Web. October 7, 2013. Betts K. Richard, Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security, 2013. USA: Colombia University Press. Print. Jackson A. Brian (ED), The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence in a Free Society, Homeland Security Program and Intelligence Policy Center, 1-309, Rand Corporation 2009. Print. Masters Jonathan & Bruno Greg, U.S. Domestic Surveillance, Council on Foreign Relations, 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 2013. McCarter Joan, More NSA Program Revelations: Program Much Deeper, More Intrusive Than Previously Known, Daily Cos, 2013. Web. October 7, 2013. Risen James & Lichtblau Eric, Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts. 2005.Web. October 6, 2013. Rule B. James Privacy in Peril, How are we sacrificing A fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience, USA: Oxford University Press. 2007. Print. West Angus, 11 Disturbing Things Snowden Has Taught Us (So Far), Global Post American’s World News Site. 2013. Web. October 7, 2013. Yoo John, Ending NSA Surveillance Is Not the Answer, 2013. Web. October 7, 2013. . Read More