National Security Agency Wiretapping : Legal Or Violation Of Civil Rights?

Supreme court rules federal investigators can wiretap into suspects phones legally, and use those conversations as evidence.

In 1928, the United States Supreme Court approved the practice of wiretapping for the police and other government officials, though some states have banned it. (Harris, 2017) Wiretapping is regulated by both the state and federal governments and, if illegal, can be punished by criminal sanctions. When an officer observes unusual conduct which leads to reasonably to conclude that criminal activity may be afoot, the officer may make reasonable inquiries aimed at confirming or dispelling the officer's suspicions.

The threat of terrorism creates a fear that allows government agencies to subvert the United States Constitution and common morals out of the threat that they will be unable to combat terrorism without performing these rights violations. After the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. on September 11th, 2001, the United States Congress passed the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act (“NSA Surveillance Programs”). This act essentially gives a blank check of domestic and foreign rights violations to the federal government, specifically the National Security Agency, as long as the violation is done in the name of fighting terrorism. Reports came out numerous times over the next decade, specifically December 2005, May 2006, and March 2012, detailing how the National Security Agency was able to stretch its powers, even beyond this liberal and controversial bill, to surveil its citizens’ private phone conversations with neither warrants nor provable suspicion of a crime taking or about to take place (“NSA Surveillance Programs”). The former of these reports was by the New York Times, which had known for nearly a year about this program but

Another pro of FISA, and the applicable amendments that followed, is the ability for electronic surveillance to be conducted without a court order for a designated length of time to better facilitate collection and streamline the process under USC. 1802, Sec 102. There are, of course, steps required by high ranking officials, the President and Attorney General, which must be taken to conduct such surveillance without a court order. Also, the criteria to conduct the surveillance is restricted specifically to communications exclusively between foreign powers and must not include “substantial likelihood” that the surveillance will acquire communications pertaining to a United States Person. [4] While the appropriate legal process should always be followed, this provision is necessary at times to bypass the lengthy legal process for obtaining a court order when time restrictions apply.

Whether it is calling someone on your phone or online shopping on the computer, people are more connected than ever to the internet. However, a person might be oblivious to the fact that they are being watched using these technologies. The NSA (National Security Agency) is an intelligence organization for the U.S. to protect information systems and foreign intelligence information. Recently the NSA has been accused of invading personal privacy through web encryption, tracking, and using personal information for their own uses and without permission. The surveillance of the NSA produces unlawful invasion of privacy causing an unsecure nation.

Government Wiretapping is when the government gets access without court consent is used completely illegally Every day, Hundreds of millions of people chat exchange text messages and send picture through social sites like Facebook and you don't know whether or not the government is watching you and see everything you send out they are just invading your privacy. While it may help catch criminals (terrorist drug dealers etc) it is being used to spy on millions of people ILLEGALLY there have even been some cases of government officials choosing to spy on people they know even if they know they're innocent. Why should the government be allowed to wiretap without court consent? They are looking at innocent people's information and some cases have

Since the passing of FISA came after a widespread finding of warrantless wiretapping by a number of different government entities, Congress along with the Carter administration, needed to carefully craft a bill that not only reconciled national security needs to conduct domestic surveillance, but also continued to protect individual liberties such as that of the first and fourth amendments. The once top-secret Carter administration memos regarding FISA offer a first-hand glimpse at the thinking that went into

A few months ago, Edward Snowden leaked confidential information about a NSA surveillance program known as PRISM. NSA agents have been recording and listening to our phone calls, reading our text messages and emails, and archiving our activities. There has been controversy about whether it is a violation of our privacy right. There has been a lot of talk about abuse of this program. Journalists have been the primary target of this unauthorized surveillance according to some report. I intend to find out if there is any abuse of this program, and also whether it violates our fourth amendment right or not.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to ever pass through the US Senate. Its critics use fear mongering tactics to scare people into opposition of an intrusive police state which they believe is inevitable given the government’s new powers. They consider the Act an assault on civil liberties and an invasion of the privacy of innocent American citizens. Yet the real issue is not that the government now has new powers, it’s that the American people do not trust our intelligence agencies to handle these new powers properly while still respecting their rights.

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.

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.

And with 3 billion phone calls made and 150 billion emails sent to and from the United States every day, the collection of this personal data without specifying the limits to their searches is unclear and unjust. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo among many others have recently, under protection from the Obama administration, revealed details as to the statistics of government collection. Even our nation's biggest telecom companies, AT&T and Verizon, were obliged to work with the NSA, lately disclosing information on the filtering equipment they were necessitated to use. The storage of this data for prolonged periods of time also makes these companies and their users vulnerable to security breaches such as theft and attack by hackers; for example, the cyber-security firm Trustwave discovered a server on November 24, 2013 which contained the information of over 318,000 accounts on Facebook. This breach was evidently made possible by companies storing data for an unnecessary amount of time as well as a weakened encryption standard. Both were implemented and enforced by the NSA, and the forced retention this data for over five years not only renders this metadata vulnerable to theft or misuse, but has also not been proven to be notably valuable in thwarting terrorist attacks.

Throughout the N.S.A.’s history, it has never been collecting as much data as it has today. Data sent out from mobile devices is being intercepted, as cellphone companies cooperate unquestionably. There is no arguing against the crimes Snowden committed. However, it is more important to observe the results the crime produced, rather than looking only at the act of the crime itself. Thus, the crimes committed by US government agencies are of greater concern than those perpetrated by Snowden because the US is in a far greater position of authority, power, and control.

Many pros and cons exist to the data collection of the National Security Administration. Whenever we talk to a friend on the phone, we expect that this phone call will be a private conversation. We assume that our phone call isn’t being recorded in any way and that there isn’t a third person listening in to our conversation. Unfortunately, we never know for sure how private our conversations are. The same goes for our emails, text messages, and other forms of communication. This can be viewed either positively or negatively.

Wiretapping is an essential tool in finding wanted men, but at the same time the Government likes to abuse this power. Before we get any further I feel I should explain what Wiretapping actually is. Wiretapping is “the practice of connecting a listening device to a telephone line to secretly monitor a conversation.”. Now that’s the definition that google gave me so I’ll try and explain it in my own words. Basically after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a new law was passed Called the “Patriot Act”, Which stated; “"Section 215 of the USAPATRIOT Act allows the government to secretly request and obtain library records for large numbers of individuals without any reason to believe they are involved in illegal activity." In other words it allowed the Government to easily spy on the