Section 215 Analysis

Domestic Surveillance in the Unites States has been going on for decades without the public 's knowledge. Domestic Surveillance didn 't seem important in the eye of the American government. After the September attacks (9/11) congress started to treat Domestic Surveillance as a number one priority. After September 11th Congress passed a law to use military force for those responsible for the attacks in New York, NY. The go ahead with using military force did not give the President to use surveillance without a warrant. Congress started to pass legislation against counterterrorism efforts. The most controversial measures, including the 2001 USA Patriot Act that gave the US federal government the ability to collect and analyze private information that has identified itself with the United States of America.

After September 11th, Americans looked to the government for protection and reassurance. However, they did not expect to find out thirteen years later that the government did this by using technology to spy on Americans, as well as other countries. George W. Bush began the policy shortly after the terrorist attack and Barack Obama continued it. There have been many confrontations over the years about the extent of the N.S.A.’s spying; however, the most recent whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, leaked information that caused much upset throughout America (EFF). It has also brought many people to question: is he a hero or a traitor?

Furthermore, Edward Snowden had done more than disclose the governments illegals acts, but also inform the world about programs and secret government agendas about how much freedom and privacy is being taken away in the name of security. Samuel Adams also once said, “The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.” In this sense, Edward Snowden had valued freedom more so over anything against it, and had acted as he did fighting and defending his individual freedom. Edward Snowden had also fought for the truth, and not only exposed the government, but also to the American people what was happening to their rights and freedoms. The many stories and historical freedom fighters had even put their lives on the line for truth and liberty, and Edward Snowden had also done the same and succeeding in continuing the fight for freedom. Many who also who perceive Edward Snowden as a hero inspire them to do the same as he had, and exposing the government of their false truths and secrecy.

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

Two articles from NewsEla give information about Edward Snowden and how he revealed how the American democracy is disappearing like our privacy. He exposed the NSA by informing the population that they were collecting Americans’ phone records. Nevertheless, even though he is going to face the consequences of his actions, he had a justified reason for doing what he did. First of all, it was revealed that the information collected by the NSA was used against citizens who were participating in low-key protests. Secondly, the government ignored terrorist information and focused on the information of the innocent. In an article by Mark Weisbrot for NewsEla it states, “However there is a mountain of evidence that this massive data-gathering is, in fact, being used against citizens who are involved in activities that are protected by our Constitution….As a result, they seem to have ignored the intelligence that was literally handed to them about the terrorists who bombed the Boston Marathon in April.” This indicates that the government has been eavesdropping into our private

In the days that followed a new law had been put into place called the Patriot Act, which right away sounds like a great and helpful thing that every American should want. However section 215 of this law, which is also referred to

This justifies the previous claims that internet protection should be included in the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. A few years ago, a former employee of both the CIA and NSA, Edward Snowden, became a whistleblower as he leaked information pertaining to the illicit activities of the NSA. One of the NSA programs that Snowden informed the public on was called XKeyscore, which allowed members of the NSA to ""search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets,"" (Business Insider). The government having the ability to investigate the internet content of ordinary citizens, in any fashion similar to that of XKeyscore, is unjust and denies American citizens their rights. The uproaring havoc of the public following the Snowden leaks reflects how Americans today, as a whole, feel about their internet content being watched by the government. Recently, the possibility of the FCC removing net neutrality concerned many citizens, afraid they were possibly going to lose their internet privileges. While this does not directly correlate to monitoring the internet, it goes to show that many Americans do not wish to have a reduction in their internet

A major part of the Freedom Act was the Section 215 amendment which stopped the “NSA from continuing its mass phone data collection program. Instead, phone companies will retain the data and the NSA can obtain information about targeted individuals with permission from a federal court.”

The Patriot Act is still having effects on the lives of citizens today. Many of the parts of the Patriot Act have been repassed in the U.S.A. Freedom Act and will be in effect as of 2019. With the passage of some parts of the Act the Senate has voted to stop the mass surveillance by the NSA. The surveillance was discovered by a man named Edward Snowden but he remains in hiding in Russia because he came out with the truth about the NSA which is a violation of the Patriot Act with the penalty of long periods of jail time so he fled to Russia in 2013 after coming out with his findings (Timm).

The Patriot Act is lengthy and encompasses many issues but its primary purpose was to protect the American Public. I will focus this paper to how the surveillance aspect affects the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and collection of Metadata.

The bill gave the government the power to survey and spy on civilians. Supposedly, this would help the United States’ government fight terrorism and enhance national security. This bill is an extension of the Patriot Act, which grants the department of National Security Agency to spy our communication through intelligent devices. Before the bill was passed a man called Edward Joseph Snowden released multiple top secret information about NSA spying activities. Snowden was an employee at the National Security Agency, which was where he collected all the surveillance information before fleeing to Hong Kong. There, he met with various journalist and spread documents he collected while working for the NSA. His actions has been praised by many civilians but also frown upon. Some believe that he is a hero because he exposed how corrupt the government is but others believe that he compromised the security of the United

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.

Prior to these leaked documents, we were completely unaware to what extent the patriot act allowed these agencies to go. We know now that they are able to monitor each individual citizen, everything from what they search for on the internet, who they call, where they go, to what and who they text, is all recorded and documented. This act, as it turns out, impedes many individual civil liberties and rights to privacy. The reason this is being done is still said to be for national security, all in an attempt to catch any would-be terrorist before they strike, thus keeping the American citizens safe. However, If Snowden’s claims are true, they have gone much too far. People are taking a stand against it and accusing the government of impeding their civil rights. The people have said it is too much and needs to be stopped.

It was due to brave men like Christopher H. Pyle and Senator Sam Ervin that people came to know that how the government was ignoring and violating the provisions to the constitution. This violation of rules and laws by the government led towards the formulation of foreign intelligence surveillance act. The primary feature of this act was as follows; "the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISA Court") which allows the executive branch to secretly obtain warrants for electronic surveillance but only with strict judicial review"

Privacy is something Americans hold dearly. No one should know another’s credit card account numbers, information about private phone conversations, or what another person does while they’re behind a private computer. For some time, people have accepted that there exists a need to be protected from enemies—both foreign and domestic. What most do not realize is that the people protecting them may also be spying on them. On June 6, 2013, the United States faced one of its most severe national security breaches in history. The source of it all was whistle blower Edward Snowden. He disclosed thousands of classified documents to several media outlets, which