Domestic Surveillance And The Snowden Leak Pros And Cons

With new found ways of viewing American citizens personal information the federal government had to learn how not to get caught. American citizens have right to their privacy and with all the new Domestic Surveillance programs many were warrantless. In 2002 Bush signed a presidential order allowing the National Security Agency to monitor without a warrant. This presidential order applied to international telephone calls and e-mail messages of thousands of citizens and legal residents inside the United States. This program never had the requirements to obtain or produce a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court but, as the 4th Amendment to the Constitution

Today, electronic surveillance remains one of the most effective tools the United States has to protect against foreign powers and groups seeking to inflict harm on the nation, but it does not go without a few possessing a few negative aspects either. Electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence has likely saved the lives of many innocent people through prevention of potential acts of aggression towards the United States. There are many pros to the actions authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) pertaining to electronic surveillance, but there are also cons. Looking at both the pros and cons of electronic surveillance is important in understanding the overall effectiveness of FISA. [1]

The PATRIOT Act abuses the privacy of American citizens. It has denied the nationals of this nation of a portion of the essential rights that were guaranteed to them in the Constitution. The rights that the PATRIOT Act puts into jeopardy are intrinsic and it is the responsibility to secure our inherent rights. The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was marked into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Its title is a ten-letter acronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. After the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon the United States has created relief controls

The NSA, or National Security Agency, is an American government intelligence agency responsible for collecting data on other countries and sometimes on American citizens in order to protect the country from outside risks. They can collect anything from the people’s phone data to their browser history and use it against them in the court of law. Since the catastrophes of September 11 attacks, the NSA’s surveillance capabilities have grown with the benefit of George W. Bush and the Executive Branch (Haugen 153). This decision has left a country divided for fifteen years, with people who agree that the NSA should be strengthened and others who think their powers should be limited or terminated. Although strengthening NSA surveillance may help the

NSA infringes on the 1st and 4th Amendment rights. America was the safe zone: a lot of people came to the United States so that they would have the freedom to express who they are, what they believe, and their thoughts without punishment. Edward Snowden, NSA whistle blower, wasn’t allowed that freedom when he made it know what the NSA was doing with Verizon’s phone records. Snowden did break the law but he brought awareness of this dilemma to the average citizen, villain, and hero. In the end, it caused the NSA to change some policies but it doesn’t even make a difference because still the administration continues to collect data without a cause. Correction: the NSA uses surveillance to protect United States of America from terrorist, terrorism and terrorism related crimes… The agency’s interpretation: anyone and anything under the sun.

We use technology every day, all day, for pretty much everything we do. Any information about ourselves, messages we send, or phone calls we make, it all takes place on our phones. However, they are also the biggest risk to our personal security as they are very vulnerable. They are not just vulnerable to scammers and hackers but also to our own government. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the president at the time, George Bush, responded by passing an act. This act is known as the Patriot Act. It allows the government unlimited access to phone records, emails, and text messages without a warrant through National Security Letters and Sneak and Peak Searches. Why do they do this, why was this act passed, they claim it’s for our safety. Both can be obtained and carried out without a judge’s approval, without a warrant, and without the knowledge of the person who is being searched. The Fourth Amendment is the right of the citizens to legal and just searches, with a warrant, with probable cause. These are not required under the Patriot Act to search through call histories and messages. The Patriot Act clearly infringes on the Fourth Amendment and the rights of the everyday citizen and does not accomplish its original goal of stopping terrorism.

The US government justifies the invasion to the privacy of their citizens saying it is a matter of security to the country. All of these privacy invasion started days after the 9/11 attack. The government and the NSA say this is a matter of safety for the US, by tracking their people, knowing what they are doing and whom they’re talking to. NSA had been on court ever since the US citizens saw something wrong and all they do is deny what their doing and the only answer that wasn’t a NO was “If our people (NSA employees) do this it isn’t on purpose”. How come can you tell that tracking someone isn’t on purpose?

Although the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) already permitted the administration to wiretap on an emergency basis and apply for warrants retroactively, the administration maintained that FISA was too cumbersome when urgent issues of national security were at stake. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales offered two justifications for the legality of the domestic spying program, asserting that the president had the "inherent authority under the Constitution, as commander in chief, to engage in this kind of activity" and that Congress, "when it authorize[d] the president to use all necessary and appropriate force" against al-Qaeda in 2001, indirectly sanctioned it. Critics objected that the wiretapping infringed on civil liberties, sidestepped the legislative branch, and placed the president above the law. In August 2006, a federal judge in Detroit ruled the wiretapping program unconstitutional. However, in July 2008, Congress passed a bill overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—effectively legalizing Bush's secret program. The new law gave legal immunity to the telephone companies that participated in the NSA secret wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and broadened the government's ability to eavesdrop on those in the U.S. and abroad it suspects are linked to terrorist

There were many conspirators to the NSA surveillance operation such as Verizon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Boundless Informant. Verizon gave them access to all of its call records for a three month period, it was an untargeted meaning they snooped on calls without suspecting anyone of wrongdoing. While on the internet side the NSA secured private data from huge tech companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. As NSA’s program PRISM collects the data Boundless Informant organizes and indexes metadata. The system collects different kinds of data the data are called metadata and can come from phones, internet, and your cookies.

Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an area in Pennsylvania, in which nearly 3,000 helpless individuals were killed, the U.S. Congress began to pass legislation that would strengthen the United State’s counterterrorism efforts. Less than a month after the horrific attack, the National Security Agency (NSA) started a “special collection program” with intentions to track communications among suspected terrorists and Al Qaeda leaders. Then on October 4, 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to monitor domestic communications in order to track down suspected terrorists. Two problems shortly arose from Bush’s decision: the fact that his authorization to NSA was carried out in secret and also that monitoring the domestic communications was done without a warrant. This proved to be illegal since the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act states that the government is prohibited from eavesdropping inside the United States without first getting a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court). In order to counteract the issues he had caused, on October 26, 2001 Bush signed the Patriot Act; a law that would expand the government’s electronic surveillance powers. After signing this law Bush stated, “The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including emails, the

In practice, the FISC system curtails the constitution, is appointed by a single person, and acts a simple bureaucratic box to tick. The judges of the FISC are appointed solely, without any approval, by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Justice John Roberts and the chief justices before him alone dictate the interpretation of the fourth amendment, a largely republican bias, “[John Roberts] appoints all FISA judges, drawn from the federal bench, and right now 10 of 12 were originally appointed by Republican presidents” (Walsh). Likewise, the warrants issued by FISC are not specific to individuals, organizations, or specific items to be found. They lack essential principles of law, such as probable cause and particularity, “indiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of ‘general warrants’ were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment” (Payton). Moreover, the government effectively provides no contest to any NSA search or spying. According to statistics of court rulings, warrants and records requests over the court’s history were denied 0.03% of the time (Center). The current situation of surveillance oversight in the United States is dismal, reckless, and

Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the US Patriot Act granted was enacted granting wide legal authority to the intelligence community as a defensive measure against future terrorist attacks. Among those new powers, included in Article 215, is the right to obtain business records, while imposing a gag order on the party holding those records. This law remains the foundation upon which the current NSA phone metadata collection campaign is operated.

It is important to note here that this practice was only used to collect information sent and received, by calls or internet data, outside the United States, until a certain big event that happened in September of 2001. As a result and under the auspices of Homeland Security, the president added domestic data mining to the mission of the NSA. This aspect of the NSA mission was set up to be a temporary directive, but has subsequently been extended by each succeeding president. As an added safeguard against interfering with domestic privacy, any individuals targeted by the NSA must be checked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a warrant

The new acts state that the NSA may not listen in to phone calls, or read emails, where United States citizens are involved, without the suspicion of them currently residing outside of the United States. However, the new acts require no individualized warrants when any situation that the NSA screens involves, or may involve a person, whether United States citizen or not, who they suspect to have been outside of the United States or currently outside of the United States. As Jack Balkin, professor at Yale Law School states, “The Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, effectively gives the President authority to run surveillance programs similar to the warrantless surveillance program (secretly implemented by George Bush in late 2001).” And if you still don’t believe that these government programs could be violating the rights given to you by the fourth amendment then look at the response that was published when senators began asking the NSA exactly how many Americans were having their phone calls or emails screened without individualized warrants, “the implication that NSA 's collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false. NSA 's activities are focused and specifically deployed against - and only against - legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interest” (NSA). This statement was published a month before President Obama announced in his

The current state of the Syrian conflict could be described as an asymmetric conflict, an important proposition of both conventional warfare and nuclear war (Mingst 256). These asymmetric conflicts often lead to unconventional tacts, such as terrorism and propaganda. ISIS takes advantage of both. Recently, three young British teenage girls left their country for Syria to join ISIS. Young people are becoming key to ISIS’ growing power. In the group’s propaganda, children are becoming the focal point. One video even shows boys in camouflage and ISIS bandanas learning how to fight. Now the focus is on luring in young women to be brides for its members. The group uses its social media platform to appeal to those with anti-Western views. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites make it increasingly easier for ISIS to reach their target audience in other countries. Through the use of “trending” features, young people can easily search for the group’s hashtags, which ISIS is able to use to disseminate their message. ISIS is able to appeal to individual’s religion and desire to escape a life of Westernized stress. ISIS even offers loyal members gifts. A British teen who left home for ISIS in 2013 claims to have left for a rent-free living situation with free electricity and water (Mullen). To combat ISIS’ use of social media, the United States needs to up its efforts in getting rid of poisonous