Essay On NSA Snooping

Privacy is, and should continue to be, a fundamental dimension of living in a free, democratic society. Laws protect “government, credit, communications, education, bank, cable, video, motor vehicle, health, telecommunications, children’s and financial information; generally carve out exceptions for disclosure of personal information; and authorize the use of warrants, subpoenas, and court orders to obtain the information.” (Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Program Assessment, 2008) This is where a lot of people feel as though they have their privacy violated. Most Americans are law-abiding citizens who do not commit illegal acts against the country, they want to go about their lives, minding their own business and not having to worry about outside interference. The fine line between privacy and National Security may not be so fine in everyone’s mind. While it is the job of government agencies to ensure the overall safety of the country and those living in it, the citizens that obey the law and do not do anything illegal often wonder why they are subject to any kind of search, when they can clearly point out, through documentation, that they have never done anything wrong.

When the colonist were drafting the constitution they couldn’t have imagined the tremendous growth we have achieved today. With innovation comes conflict. Many citizens feel the United States gives an illusion of freedom. Today the biggest conflicts are centered on basic rights spelled out in the constitution. It’s no secret the National Association of Surveillance illegally obtains information from the electronic devices of United States citizens. The actions of the NSA violate the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendment rights. The NSA’s use of information impedes on the first amendment in terms of freedom of press. For a journalist the source is the key, and the key stays confidential. With the NSA collecting digital trails there is a higher risk for whistle blowers to be charged with criminal act or even assassinated. The courts stand by the NSA, for

With good intentions, the Patriot Act allows the government to pry into Americans' lives through computer and phone records as well as credit and banking history (Source 5). This oversteps the U.S. Constitution as the First and Fourth Amendment were created to give citizens freedom and the right to deny search and seizure

Many companies have gathered personal information online to target ads with the user’s preferences, but tracking can allow companies to find out your credit card number, where you live and your interests. Hence, the NSA should be incriminated for utilizing personal information that can endanger a person’s security by using information from social networks, experimenting and distributing information.

The US Patriot Act was a very controversial act that was created after the events of September 11, 2011. Although many sanctions under the US Patriot Act grossly violated the fourth amendment in several ways, congress felt it was necessary to protect the nation. Sections that violated the fourth amendment are: the sneak and peek warrants included in section 213, roving/warrantless wiretapping of section 206, and finally trap and trace searches of section 214. These are just a few of the many violations I can account for. The Fourth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights that was added to the Constitution in 1791. It protects people from unlawful searches and seizures. This means that the police can't search you or your house without a warrant or probable cause. Are we truly willing to override the Constitution in the name of national security?

National Security Agency (NSA) regulations and tactics’ is an invasion of privacy, an infringement on the Constitutional Amendments, and fails to keep the private or confidential data of Americans safe from hackers.

The Patriot Act, in my opinion, is violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution (even though it is an exception to it) because it invades our privacy by allowing the government to place wide ranging wiretaps on us without even identifying the target or locations of target individuals who have no connection to terrorist organizations and collect business records of all Americans without any connection to terrorists. Under the act, any data can be collected by the government without a warrant. They have access to the phone calls we make, the inbound and outbound internet traffic we navigate, and even the emails we receive/send in a daily basis. Basically, under this act, none of the electronic information that we consider private is untouchable

On September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks the Twin Tower of the World Trade Center. In response to this attack, President George W. Bush administration increases their data capability. “A federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance, panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata every 90 days.” So does the NSA violate the 4th amendment? According to uscourts.gov “4th Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The 4th Amendment, however, is not granted against all searches and seizures, but only those that are being unreasonable under the law.” On one hand, the 4th amendment and other hand you have the Patriot Act and now called the USA Freedom Act.

“After years of denial, much of which likely constituted perjury, officials of the National Security Agency (NSA) admitted to having conducted unwarranted surveillance of Americans, a violation of the protections against such searches provided by the Fourth Amendment.” "NSA Admits Directly Targeting Americans for Warrantless Surveillance." NSA Admits Directly Targeting Americans for Warrantless Surveillance. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. The NSA abuses their power by going to the extreme and spying on innocent citizens warrantless. It isn’t fair to the society. The NSA shouldn’t be able to view anyone’s personal information without a warrant. With or without a warrant, The NSA should still have certain rules that will create boundaries. President Obama and the National Security Chief stated that they do not monitor the communications of

The U.S. government overreaches the limits of the fourth amendment by illegally spying, collecting data from citizens, and cannot confirm the intention is actually to foreigners although it may help to prevent terrorism. It's unfair that the NSA and U.S. government are able to invade the privacy of anyone from innocent mothers to bank robbers when actually only the bank robbers phone calls should be surveilled. Without the protection of the fourth amendment life in the United States as its known would come to an end.

Many people feel that the Patriot Act overreaches its original intent by allowing the government to spy on its own citizens, essentially violating American’s civil liberties, most notably our right to privacy granted by our Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights, as well as our right to due process granted by the Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

The Fourth Amendment Precludes worry about government trespassing. David Sirota author of the website”Does the government actually understand the 4th Amendment?” says "Mother Jones Reports that an 86 page court ruling determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying"(understand). Cornell University law school states, "electronic surveillance is also considered a search under the fourth amendment.” (Fourth amendment). Cornell University also states,"A seizure of a person, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, occurs when the police's conduct would communicate to a reasonable person."(Fourth Amendment).According to the American Civil Liberties Union the NSA examines

Although the Fourth amendment protects our privacy and safety the government should be aloud to search our personal property with a search warrant given with a probable cause. A search in the eyes of the Fourth Amendment arises when a governmental employee or agent violates an individual's acceptable idea of privacy explains Cornell University Law school. Also, The American Civil Liberties Union says Fundamental problems say the government can not collect surveillance without probable cause. FISA amendment act signed into law by president Bush in 2008 expanded government authority to monitor Americans electronic communications claims the United states Senate Committee on the Judiciary. David Sirota Author of “Does the government actually understand

Americans have the right to know what personal information of theirs is being monitored by the government and if the government is operating in a constitutional manner. Although the top priority of government should be to protect Americans from international threats, it must do so without infringing on basic human rights. I believe that the Supreme Court rulings and laws regarding privacy are a good balance of protection and respect to privacy. However, government agencies such as the NSA have certainly overstepped their ground in many cases and abused clauses within the

The United States government is surveilling citizens without probable cause, which is part of the Fourth Amendment to the constitution. Under the Fourth Amendment in the constitution it states, “against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants (Links to an external site.) shall issue, but upon probable cause.” The court rules out what does and what doesn’t constitute as a search or seizure, so if the government had a reason to believe someone was guilty they would have to get a warrant from the court before searching or seizing (Fourth Amendment). According to recently released documents, the NSA is surveilling Americans’ without meeting the requirements outlined by the Fourth Amendment (How the NSA’s). As