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The Section 702 Of The Legislation

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The section 702 of the … legislation is a question that should be debated for many ends. This section raises questions that worry scholars across disciplines: human right activists, political philosophers, lawyers, etc. One reason for its controversialness is the double standard that it uses to justify surveillance of US persons (US citizens and foreigners in US land) and non US persons (foreigners outside the US). For US citizens, whether or not they are in US territory, Section 702 does not allow US intelligence agencies to intercept their information or to put them on record. To put US persons on record, the NSA or other intelligence agencies should seek a warrant from the court after showing a probable cause that specific US persons …show more content…

I will then analyze the 3rd recommendation of the paper “Liberty and Security”, which demands that “surveillance must not be directed at illicit or illegitimate ends, such as the theft of trade secrets or obtaining commercial gain for domestic industries,” and argue that even if this motive may not be the main reason why foreign surveillance is conducted, it can be an unintended but useful – or rather unfair – consequence of easy collection of foreign intelligence, especially when considering the difference in technological capabilities between countries in the world. Finally, I am going to argue that, for the socio-economic benefit of globalization and international trade, it should be made equally harder for US intelligence agencies to collect information on non-US persons as it is to collect US-persons’ private information. Otherwise, this double standard can have – or maybe already has – negative consequences on trust between nations.

This is an interesting approach to the assignment, Serges. One question that it raises is whether the distinctions between US persons and foreigners are morally justified—do you focus on the practical arguments about globalization because you think that it is morally acceptable to make the distinctions that section 702 makes and the only basis for opposing them is to point to their practical consequences?

In the paper “Liberty and Security,” the author

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