A Critical of Awareness of Social Issues within Popular Culture

In “How the NSA’s Domestic Spying Program Works,” the author reveals that many of “aspects of the (NSA) Program were aimed not just at targeted individuals, but perhaps millions of innocent Americans never suspected of a crime.” The author develops his thesis by detailing a few examples of major telecommunication companies that share customer’s call records to the NSA (AT&T, Sprint) and explaining that programs were implemented to monitor the emails of citizens (“amounted to at least 1.7 billion emails a day”). The author uses examples of how NSA decisions were made without a “warrant or any judicial oversight,” in order to increase citizen awareness of how the NSA functions. The author uses a erudite tone to address the audience of Americans

On June 6, 2013, The Guardian published a story about the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM (Greenwald and MacAskill 2013). The story was based on documents leaked by one of the most successful whistle-blowers in American history, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents that Snowden has released up to this time have shown the NSA to be heavily engaged in the collection of personal Internet activity, bulk collection of telephone "metadata," and other forms of surveillance that have brought U.S. intelligence practices into question.

Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the National Intelligence Agency surveillance extension is some of the most comprehensive news in recent history. It has incited a ferocious debate over national security and information privacy. As the U.S government deliberates various reform proposals, arguments continue on whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor (Simcox, 2015).

College students should be able to get paid when they play basketball. College players should get paid. They should get paid, but not that much. If they do nothing except sit on the bench they shouldn’t get paid as much as the players that actually play. You shouldn’t have to pay to get paid. Without a doubt college players should get paid, if they sit on the bench they won’t get paid as much as others, and they shouldn’t pay to get paid.

This paper will cover the pros and cons of government surveillance. It will cover different views on the issue such as ethical, social, and global impact. This paper will try to answer the question of how government surveillance on social media can impact local citizens in the United States

On September 11, 2001, tragedy struck in the United States; 2,977 people died in the iconic terrorist attacks (“September 11th Fast Facts”). In New York, New York, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, and another crashed into the Pentagon, which is the military command center located in Washington D.C. Along with those three planes, there was a fourth plane that was hijacked, but the passengers overthrew the terrorist, and downed the plane in Pennsylvania. These attacks resulted in racism against the Muslim community and government agencies that changed their goal to preventing another terrorist attack on the United States and its allies (Gould, Eric D., and Klor). One of these agencies is the NSA; NSA employee, Edward Snowden leaked top-secret information in 2013, regarding their spying program (Greenwald, Glenn). This caused great commotion all across the United States about people’s rights. However, the NSA is here to protect the United States and other countries from potential terrorist attacks. The NSA should be allowed to collect people’s communication records to bring home more troops and prevent terrorist attacks.

Keeping the United States of America safe from foreign threats is far from an easy task. However, preventing domestic threats is a much more complicated and delicate one. Government organizations such as the National Security Agency [NSA] are known to have invaded our privacy through our connection to technology. The NSA has publicly admitted to the surveillance. Due to media coverage, the NSA is often viewed as the main agency that bulk collects data. Emails, phone calls, and even our text messages have been surveilled under an NSA program known as “PRISM” (“Domestic Surveillance Techniques”). Everyday government organizations invade our privacy for the sake of national security in an attempt to defend us from domestic threats, but it seems they often take surveillance a step too far. United States citizens should understand legality of these actions, as well as the purpose this data collection serves.

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign

Ever since the American public was made aware of the United States government’s surveillance policies, it has been a hotly debated issue across the nation. In 2013, it was revealed that the NSA had, for some time, been collecting data on American citizens, in terms of everything from their Internet history to their phone records. When the story broke, it was a huge talking point, not only across the country, but also throughout the world. The man who introduced Americans to this idea was Edward Snowden.

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

The Patriot Act was hastily passed just a month later October and it severely limited the privacy of Americans and gave unprecedented power to the government and private agencies to track innocent Americans, turning regular citizens into suspects.5 In addition, the great technological evolution and emerged of social media that occurred round the same time, and shortly thereafter, created the perfect storm for the emergence of the largely unregulated surveillance society that we live in today.6 The result is digitization of people’s personal and professional lives so that every single digital trace that people leave can be identified, stored, and aggregated to constitute a composite sketch of ourselves and its only getting worse. In 2008, passed the FISA Amendments Act, which expands the government’s authority to monitor Americans’ international communications, in addition to domestic communications.7 In short, after 9/11 the U.S is left with a national surveillance state, in which “the proliferation of government technology and bureaucracies that are able to acquire vast and detailed amounts of digital information about individuals with minimal or no judicial supervision and often in complete secrecy,” giving the government and corporations with access to the data that the government compiles the ability to single

Though the consequences of citizen’s actions through technology today are not as severe or are non punishable, they do not take the government’s surveillance as seriously as the citizens of Oceania did in 1984. One NSA system can reach about 75% of all US Internet traffic, communications by foreigners and Americans (Gorman n. pag.). The US government's defense to surveillance claims is that the justification is National Security (Calamur n. pag.)., and this may be true, but the question of the freedom to privacy ratio, as a free nation, is still undecided. One way surveillance is now even more accessible is due to Google Glass. "With Google Glass, nobody's pointing a camera... phone. You no longer know if you're being filmed... an unspoken social rule is being violated" (Brown 42). and gives the government the ability to see from the point of view of anyone. With most every person you meet having quick access to some sort of recordable technology, it is easy to have your actions recorded or documented without your knowledge. The information can be easily spread around the world without your knowing or permission with just a simple touch. As said before, “.....an unspoken social rule is being violated” (Brown 42), taking away the sense of privacy and security felt by many Americans. Another form of surveillance, used by specifically the NYPD, is the use of undercover cops. Since The Occupy Wall Street

I was recently diagnosed with anxiety that effects me during test taking. I have had anxiety attacks during tests and the high school and I took action to the issue. Since being diagnosed, my counselor has given me the access to take my tests in a separate room with silence so I can feel comfortable and score higher on my tests.

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

William’s paper addresses the moral risk that is posed when people decide to intentionally remain ignorant to avoid a possible ethical crisis. She then elaborates on how this choice manifests itself in four different types of affected ignorance. She bases her belief that factory farming is wrong using deontology and utilitarianism because animals deserve respect as well as the ability to exist without pain that is atypical from a natural life. Her argument is that when we chose affected ignorance, we then become subject the possibility of “moral risk” if we identify that factory farming is morally wrong and continue to support it. I agree with her argument, but believe that it could be strengthened by developing the idea of how affected ignorance is a symptom of being weak willed.