Government spying on Citizens

Government officials try to put people’s concerns to rest with these statements, but the resentment toward the “snooping” continues (Zuckerman para 4) The government does, without a doubt have reason for the NSA’s surveillance.

5 Ways You Give The Government Control” written by Kenneth Coats shows how the devices we use daily slowly take over individuals lives. Coats states, “Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything...This essentially makes them the perfect tracking and bugging devices”. Although electronic devices are known to be safe, they allow outside people to figure out individuals personal life. Due to the need for devices such as cell phones, each individual has a high chance of being socially stalked once in their lifetime. Coats then states, “Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but… your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to recorded conversations and take photographs”. This issue causes a panic due to the wide spread of inappropriate pictures and private conversations in one's life. Even though technology is viewed as a privileged, it is also taking away people's lives without their

The government looks at our emails, text messages, listens to our phone calls and other similar communication devices. “The U.S. has led a worldwide effort to limit individual privacy and enhance the capability of its police and intelligence services to eavesdrop on personal conversations. The campaign has had two legal strategies. The first made it mandatory for all digital telephone switches, cellular and satellite phones and all developing communication technologies to build in surveillance capabilities; the second sought to limit the dissemination of software that provides encryption, a technique which allows people to scramble their communications and files to prevent others from reading them” (Solove). How much of this did you know about? Almost all of our current devices already have technology that makes it an easy access for the government to know about all of your conversations.

With the seemingly exponential propagation of inexpensive digital communications technologies over recent years, the general public is becoming more aware of the issues surrounding information privacy and government surveillance in the digital age. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a smart-phone has to be wary of how they use their private information for fear of that information being collected and used in a way contrary to their wishes. "Leaky" smartphone apps that transmit private information across the internet can be unethically used by government agencies. The issue of privacy is a balancing act; the public usually wants increased privacy and the government usually wants increased access.

In this day and age it is very hard to be secretive or private about affair, whether it be business or the other sense of the word when two people come together as forbidden lovers, ask Bill Clinton. One often acquires a feeling of eeriness while alone or when the phone rings and no one is there. And that individual labels these incidents as paranoia or thinks nothing of it. But what if this isn’t coincidence? What if someone has tapped lines and to ensure it is working the phone rings. Remember that “Collect call from”, the government you received yesterday? Wake up people. Surveillance of U.S. Citizens is real. The NSA is videotaping, tapping the phone lines and watching us watching them. That

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.

Craig Timberg’s article, “The CIA is using popular TVs, smartphones and cars to spy on their owners (2017),” asserts that the U.S. Government uses powerful hacking tools during the process of breaking through encryptions and stealing personal data in order to surveil on their own citizens. Craig supports his claim by explaining the contents of 8,761 government documents, which included blueprints for the super tools, that WikiLeaks released. The WikiLeaks information provides evidence of the government’s invasion of citizen’s personal smartphones, smart Tv’s, smart cars, and other devices in which the government uses to collect data and to spy. Timberg’s purpose is to highlight how the U.S. Government illegally spies on it’s citizens by using

Specific Purpose: My purpose of this presentation is to inform listeners about the dangers of government surveillance and why it should be stopped.

Why is spying frowned upon when the U.S. does it? The United States is well-known as a sneaky nation due to the operations they manage such as the secretive way of gathering intelligence, spying. There are not many limits on the countries spying, because it is a way to prepare ahead. The United States of America spying may be considered as repugnant for the matter of losing the trust of a country with resources valuable to the U.S., however, spying is always an option to clarify suspicious activities and anticipate an attack and mold it to our advantage to protect the United States at any cost for the sake of the innocent civilians.

For years the government has been secretly committing surveillance. The FBI places wiretaps, monitors calls, and reads emails of millions of people. Whether they are trying to catch thieves or prevent terrorism, spying is a part of everyday life for the people of the United States. Before, this surveillance was committed in secret, with no one but the governments knowing what, and why it is happening. Then, in the 20th and 21st centuries, people began to find out. From the Pentagon Papers in the 1970’s, or recently Edward Snowden publishing papers about NSA surveillance, people are shocked and outraged by the new knowledge that we are not as anonymous as we think (Vilines, 1). Government surveillance has lowered citizen trust, increased

Furthermore, the government spying on its citizens is a huge violation of the rights they are granted. Privacy is a person’s right as a human being, however, privacy is also a privilege. If a

While working for the NSA, Snowden became aware of their extensive trespasses against the privacy of U.S. and international citizens alike. Upon considering the extent of these trespasses, Snowden felt that it was his moral duty, as he stated, “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them”. His provided information showed the use of Internet surveillance programs, and the evaluation of phone records in the form of “metadata”. Many argue that Snowden’s leaking of information has hindered our government’s ability to intercept terrorist plots, by informing the world of the NSA’s capabilities, and therefore allowing terrorist groups to plot attacks beyond the reach of U.S. surveillance. In light of this, Snowden’s leak has indeed made us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, but does this justify the NSA’s chosen use of power? Since Snowden’s revelations, it has become evident that the NSA consistently uses their surveillance abilities to unjustified ends. One function of the NSA’s electronic data analysis is to find targets for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command to strike with lethal drone attacks. Many innocent civilians in middle-eastern countries have lost their lives as a result of this military sect’s reliance on the NSA’s data, rather than human correspondence. According to an anonymous former drone-operator, the victims of these attacks “might have been terrorists, or they could have been

For as long as I can remember as a child, I have heard stories about how the government is always listening through devices such as phones, computers, and televisions. However, without any physical evidence, all these claims were merely speculation. On June 5, 2013, Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, would confirm the long time stories by leaking covert data. Snowden would leak a trove of NSA files which included the NSA's collection of email and telephone data from Verizon, which later was found to be even more broad than just Verizon data. Just a few days later on June, 12, 2013, the South China Morning Post published an interview with Snowden that stated that United States intelligence agents have been

The cause of terrorist attacks like 9/11 tragedy the government has ramped ups the security and surveillance of the activist, journalist and dissidents. It is no secret that the government are able to have assess of people phone call records and text messages but for that reason that, activists avoid using telephones, instead they use tools like Skype. Which they think they are immune to interception but they are wrong. Over the last years there has been an industry of companies who provide surveillance technology to the government, technology that allows the government to hack into computers. Rather that intercepting the commutations as they go over the wire, instead the government now hacks into your computer, enable your webcam and your microphone and able to steal and look through documents from your computer. In the article “ Quasi- Constitutional Protection and Government Surveillance” by Emily Berman argues “ The government may collect and analyze unprecedented amounts of information about U.S persons’ communications, but without concomitant safeguards against infringing on individual privacy” (781). According to this, it indicates that all the access the government is able to see and how it is invading American’s privacy.