The Security Agency's Wiretapping Program

Privacy in this era is threatened by the growth in technology with capacity that is enhanced for surveillance, storage, communication as well as computation. Moreover, the increased value of this information in decision making is one of the insidious threats. For this reason, information and its privacy are actually threatened and less privacy is assured.

As human beings and citizens of the world, everyone values their privacy. It is a right that is often looked over and taken for granted by most. Since the beginning of time, there have been concerns about individuals’ rights to privacy and their personal information remaining confidential. Our founding fathers had concerns about this which is why, “…this right has developed into

Over the last several years, cyber attacks have been continually rising. This is in response to emerging threats from rogue nations and terrorist groups. They are increasing their attacks on government, military and civilian installations. According to James Clapper (the Director of National Intelligence) these threats have become so severe. It is surpassing terrorism as the greatest challenge facing the nation. In response, the National Security Agency (NSA) began conducting surveillance on those who are involved in these activities and others which are threat to US national security interests. This program became so broad; it started continually collecting phone records and emails on ordinary Americans. This angered many, who felt that the US was acting in a way that circumvented established legal guidelines and procedures. To fully understand what is taking place requires focusing on the event, the government 's response and the ways it did / did not meet our national security goals. Together, these different elements will illustrate what occurred and the lasting impacts on everyone. (Greenwald 2014)

The right to privacy is viewed as a fundamental right all over the world. However, there are many interpretations of what privacy is, and this interpretations are in some way related to historical events that shaped the meaning of privacy differently for every country. Countries of the European Union consider the right to privacy a sacred right, therefore, they have established laws to protect the respect for private and family life and the right to personal data protection. Although United States has some sector laws to protect privacy, the constitution does not mention privacy as fundamental right, nonetheless, the notion of privacy can be extracted from the first 10 amendments of the constitution. Consequently, regulation of the right to privacy changes drastically between Europe and the United States. Countries in Europe have regulatory agencies whose only purpose is protect the privacy of its citizens. In contrast, the

Personal data are regulated by United Nations and urges States to implement effective measures to ensure that information concerning a person´s private life does not reach the hands of person who are not authorized by law to receive,process and use it.Thus private data are protected not only by law of States also by international laws, and concerning computer misuse

Government surveillance is made with the intent to keep American society safe, usually made in response to major terrorist attacks to prevent future terrorist attacks. After the tragic events of 9/11 the Us government took measures to prevent future terrorist attacks from happening. One major act enacted was the Patriot act.

So my understanding of the wiretapping was included in the patriot act was because of the terrorist attacks in 9/11. They added this patriot act for it could prevent future terrorist attacks. According to npr.org "In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress approves the U.S.A. Patriot Act to improve the government's ability to stop future terrorist attacks. It includes provisions to help streamline the process of obtaining the necessary warrants to conduct eavesdropping" I think it’s a good idea but I also think its not. I think its good because that way they can catch terrorists and prevent them for doing danger to the people. But I think it’s not a good idea because they cant just wiretap people without knowing

In Marc Thiessen’s article “Leaks, Not the NSA Programs, Deserve Condemnation,” Thiessen discusses the NSA leaks from 2013, criticizing Edward Snowden for leaking this information to the public. He states that the criticism of the “warrantless wiretapping” of the NSA spying programs are not warranted, with the claims of violations of the Fourth Amendment being nullified by the ruling of the Smith v. Maryland case. He then list three methods of obtaining information for combating terrorism, which are interrogation, insurgency, and communication monitoring.

Over the past few years, the development of the Internet and the intrusive surveillance capabilities of these technologies have caused privacy to become a major political and social issue for millions of Americans who go online.  Companies employ a variety of tools to gather marketable information on American citizens.  Most of the use of this information is for personalized advertisement and to create databases of target audiences.  While these activities may appear to be nothing more than annoyances for a majority of Americans, there is the hidden danger of the loss of privacy.

Recent controversy has exposed one of the most heated and long-standing debates about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless wiretapping. Although that beginning of the program conducted by the NSA is unknown, it is easily assumed that the NSA has been practicing such surveillance activities for a long time, or as long as national security has been threatened. Nevertheless, the program started well before the tragic events that unfolded on September 11, 2001, with the Bush administration directing the NSA to begin secretly surveilling conversations between U.S. citizens and suspected foreign terrorists.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was a result of “congressional investigations into Federal surveillance activities conducted in the name of national security” (Intelligence Surveillance Act, n.d.). FISA allows for judicial and congressional supervision of foreign surveillance, while maintaining the “secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats”, and outlines the procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information (Intelligence Surveillance Act, n.d.).

People make phone calls, and send emails all the time. These things are usually private and involve small groups of people. However, we have discovered that phone calls and emails are not as private as one may think. The government and the National Security Agency (NSA), have been spying on citizens and collecting data from the calls made and text messages and emails sent. Though they say they are doing this for our safety and to detect terrorists, the NSA has not caught many terrorists with the methods of surveillance they are using. NSA methods are ineffective and have not produced adequate results to justify their damage to civil liberties.

There is a concern about many users privacy worldwide. Technology is constantly upgrading and internet is being used daily worldwide. Laws are constantly changing and there are many concerns about this. In this essay, I will be talking about why

In my opinion, the meaning of privacy of our personal data when we use online services on the Internet is different from what Google and other Internet companies are interpreting the meaning of Privacy to suit their business need to generate advertisement revenue by allowing companies to display advertisement relevant to the web search by their customer on their website.

Personal privacy today is a controversial and complex topic, which is influenced by a number of factors. There is an integral role that databases play in this highly debated topic. The fact that many people now carry out their transactions electronically is another important factor. There is also pressure on personal privacy for increased national security around the world to combat terrorism. In addition, personal privacy is even threatened by commercial factors and the Internet.