Should the Government Be Allowed to Spy on People - Essay Example

19 May 2016

Should the Government be allowed to Spy on People?

It is important to consider, whether the government should be allowed to spy on common citizens in the name of improving national security and fighting terrorism? It is a fact that government spying on common citizens did take a whole new perspective after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A sense of fear gripped the nation and it was argued that the government agencies need to have more potent spying rights and privileges to prevent such attacks in the future. Within a month of the 9/11 attacks the Patriot Act was passed by the Congress. The sad thing is that the change of government did not dilute the evinced government need to spy on people. The Patriot Act was renewed by President Obama in 2011. It widened the rights extended to government agencies to conduct surveillance on people to improve the security scenario within the nation (Weisman A1). The Patriot Act extended a wide range of powers to the security agencies. This Act allowed for conducting searches on common citizens without their consent. It also allowed the security agencies the right to eavesdrop into the email and phone records of people for security purposes. According to Richard Ernsberger Jr. “the war on terror has turned rhetoric about national security into a cauldron of fear rather than a reasoned sense of reality about the dangers of terrorism (Ernsberger Jr. 12)”. In the year 2013 the Edward Snowden fiasco brought to fore the extent and pervasiveness of the government spying on common people (Weisman A1). The very fact that the government was spying on its own people to protect them from possible terrorist attacks was a thing that really annoyed many citizens. Many concerned citizens and groups questioned the relevance of government spying on people and as to what it intended to achieve (Weisman A1). In a practical context, the government should not be allowed to spy on people because this is not only poised to hollow the very foundations of a free and democratic society that America is, but it is also bound to have much negative impact on the American society.

The important thing is that people do have a right to privacy and no government urgency has the authority to infringe on this right to privacy. It is true that to some extent all governments engage in spying on people to manage the law and order situation in any nation. However, the extent to which a government could conduct surveillance on people needs to have its limits. Extending the excuse of fighting terrorism no way means that the government agencies should be given the far reaching authority to peek into the private life of citizens (Ryan A13). If given such a right, there is a valid possibility that the concerned government agencies may exceed their limit and may pry into the private lives of such common citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism. Besides, such spying on the privacy of common people is also illegal in the sense that the Fourth Amendment extends to people the right to be free of “unreasonable searches and seizure”. Thereby the government spying on people is against the constitution and goes contrary to the limits set by the law. What the government agencies are doing is that they are culling information regarding the private lives of people through electronic means rather than engaging in direct searches (Ryan A13). Thereby such an arrangement designed to spy on the common people is open and vulnerable to being abused and misused. Hence, eavesdropping into the private lives of people at the pretext of controlling terrorism is indeed wrong and needs to be checked. The government cannot spy on the private life of any citizen without having a pertinent excuse to do so (Ryan A13). It does not mean that government should not be allowed to spy on people who are traitors or terrorists. But, making such laws that extend to the state a pervasive right to spy on all people is something that is unjustified and unwarranted. Spying on people is not the only viable way to control terrorism or nab terrorists. The government does need to come out with more ingenious and creative ways to gather intelligence on terrorists rather than resorting to a pervasive spying on all people. The thing is that “the United States security policy should focus its efforts on specifics, both in terms of intelligence gathering and analysis and disruptive measures (Ernsberger Jr. 13)”.Breaching the privacy of common people is too high a price to be paid for preventing terrorist activities and it eats into the foundations of a free and democratic society like the United States of America (Ryan A 13). It is something that needs to be stopped at the earliest.

The other thing is that government spying on people gives way to a sense of fear and insecurity amongst the common people. The very realization that government is reading all of one’s personal emails and is listening to the private chat one engages in on the phone is bound to have a chilling effect on any person (Devlin A3). The reasoning that protecting people from terrorists makes it necessary for the government to spy on people may sound logical and valid, yet, in a practical sense it is bound to instill much fear and apprehension amongst common people who dislike being spied on by the government agencies. Instead of protecting citizens from terrorists, government spying on people gives way to an environment imbued with apprehension where everybody is required to live in fear. It is a reality that all people do happen to have a private life and by the dint of it everybody has something that one needs to keep secret and away from the eyes and ears of other people. Thereby government does not have the right to hear and see what a common man leading a peaceful life does in one’s private moments and pass judgments over it (Devlin A3). Breaching the privacy of people in the name of protecting them from fear is something that is indeed pitiable and deplorable. Perhaps people will be much happier if they are made to face their fears without losing their privacy. It is totally illogical to make the hard working and honest common man loose one’s privacy, just because America is vulnerable to acts of terrorism. It would be much better for the government to let the common people be, and rather refurbish and streamline its intelligence gathering mechanisms so that they could protect people without depriving them of their sense of well being and privacy. When the government begins to infringe on the privacy of people in the guise of security, it not only mars the sense of security enjoyed by people, but rather makes them more fearful and apprehensive. It is a fact that the United States of America has a vast history of government surveillance and historical facts testify to it that government surveillance has always been abused and misused (Devlin A3). When past governments have used public surveillance as a means to gather the information they need about people whom they deemed to be a threat, what guarantee does the present day government can extend that it will desist from doing so. It is better that the government intelligence agencies spend their resources on more efficient and better technologies rather than tweaking the system to pry into the lives of common people.

Moreover, the government spying of people also dilutes the credibility and veracity of the government. For any democratic society to be viable, it is important that people have a faith in the rule of law and that they trust their government to protect the way of life they cherish and value. For any society to be stable it is important that people do have some level of faith and trust in the government of the day. However, if the government starts using its machinery and resources to spy on the common people, there will come a time when people will doubt the credibility and veracity of the state and its capacity to protect them and the very rights they value and cherish (Calo 27). They will harbor a seething doubt in the intentions of a government that is not only bent on stripping them of their privacy rights, but that is also divesting them of their very right to dissent, get organized and dare to raise voice against the state policies and programs. They will start considering the government to be an oppressive regime, and it will eventually start eroding their faith in the national stability and the rule of law.

Another major aspect of the state surveillance needs to be taken into cognizance is the fact that such an approach towards people is bound to curtail the free speech and the freedom of expression (Kayyem B4). If people come to know that whatever they think and believe is being spied on by the government and that there are scarcely any aspects of their life that are not under government surveillance, they will seldom dare to harbor such beliefs and ideas that go contrary to the government position, out of the fear that doing so will perhaps make them get identified by the state machinery. It will be worthwhile to consider the fact as to what would have happened if the Nazi Germany had access to the kind of electronic surveillance that the government has today. It is but pragmatic to conclude that Nazi Germany would have immensely succeeded. It would have readily been able to suppress all kinds of dissent and silence the groups and individuals thinking and believing contrary to the state stance. The thing is that freedom of expression and the rights to harbor beliefs that go contrary to the popular political belief system do thrive in an environment where the privacy of the people is respected and protected (Kayyem B4).

Yet, there is no dearth of bodies of opinion and groups and individuals who support the state spying on people by citing an array of excuses. For instance there are some people who believe that allowing the state to spy on people will help the government in preventing more 9/11 type attacks. This is indeed sad as it amounts to playing with the insecurity and fears of the people (Ernsberger Jr. 12). The thing that needs to be understood is that if the political class is allowed to play on the fears of the people by justifying it’s spying on people in the guise of securing them, it is bound to take advantage of the information and data that it manages to cull out through such concerted spying and surveillance. Even if one believes that continuous surveillance of people by the state is bound to protect them, still people have the right to disagree and they have the right to live in a world where they are not spied on by the government. Thereby, more of public surveillance ought to be accompanied by more of openness on the part of the government and sadly this is not happening.

The other practical reason that is oft cited in favor of the government spying on people is that only those people are averse to the state spying on them who have something to hide. Those people who have nothing to hide, and who are above board and honest have no reasons to oppose the government spying on them. The one big problem with such assertion is that it utterly misplaces the meaning of personal privacy and intends to bring all aspects of personal life within the domain of government surveillance (Stoycheff 299). Such supporters of government spying need to understand that going by the fact that each and every person has a personal life that one prefers to keep away from the public realm. Everybody has something in one’s life that one intends to hide. There are intimate and delicate aspects of every persons’ life that are seldom available for public scrutiny and scarcely available to be analyzed and unraveled by the state security machinery. If the government starts spying on its own people, personal privacy and sanctity of personal life will become concepts that will become totally irrelevant (Stoycheff 302).

The reality is that the Americans who are concerned about the state surveillance do need to take such steps that may make the state get cautious about invading the privacy of common people, in the name of fighting terrorism. Unrestrained and unqualified spying on the common people is something that not only restrains the liberties extended to the common people by the Constitution, but it is also something that impedes the life of the masses. Those citizens who are really bothered by the state surveillance can resort to an array of measures that may make the state desist from unwarranted spying on common people. As per Ryan Calo, “the majority of Americans who are concerned about government surveillance (52 percent) or who believe that there are inadequate limits on surveillance in place (65 percent) appear to have several avenues for resistance or reform (Calo 23)”. The citizens do have the option to challenge the unwanted surveillance being imposed on them in the name of fighting terrorism, in the appropriate courts of law. The worried citizens do have the option to ascribe to the requisite legal measures, so as to restrain the unimpeded surveillance being placed on them by the state. It is a fact that America is a democracy where people have the right to elect their political representatives. The point is that people always have the option to elect such political candidates to power, who care about the privacy of the common people and are willing to bring in such laws that restrain and control the state spying on the common people. People can always choose such political candidates who share their concern about state surveillance and who are willing to raise their voice against the state spying on common people (Calo 24). Moreover, state surveillance on common people is something that is immensely dependent on the technology at the disposal of government agencies. Thereby, many people can opt for purchasing and using such technologies that not only hinder the government agencies from prying on their privacy, but that make it difficult for anybody to access the personal information and data that they intend to protect and keep secret. The citizens can also request the corporations whose services they procure and who have access to their personal data, not to reveal that data and information to the government agencies (Calo 24).

Every man’s home is one’s castle, and if government starts spying on its own people, it vitiates the harmony of personal and public life. The government spying on people not only divests them of their constitutional rights, it also eats into the public belief in the rule of law and deprives the people of their faith and trust in the popularly elected government. Personal privacy is the cornerstone of the American way of life, and any government attempt to divest the people of their privacy eats into the very foundations of a free and democratic society. Thereby there is no excuse that could readily justify the government spying on people.