Governments Right to Spy Essay

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Government's Right To Spy And Command Our Life The Way They Do



The 9/11 attack saw over 3,000 Americans murdered by terrorists. The government was faulted, but there was a consensus that the U.S. government needed to take stern action. There was panic that made the congress to give the government fresh surveillance authorities. However, it attached an expiration date to the authority so as to allow for further deliberations after the end of the emergency. Decades later, the law has been extended on a number of occasions, yet there has been no public discussion on how the law can be interpreted. There has been an expansion of the surveillance at all fronts regardless of the freedom created by the founders of the United States. The surveillance should make us safer without violating the liberties of the American Citizens. This paper is a critique to the right of the government to spy on the lives of its citizens the way it is done by the security apparatus.



Reliance on government agencies as a secrete body of law has dire consequences. Americans are not interested in knowing the details of the ongoing sensitive intelligence and military activities. However, in their capacity as voters, they have a right to know what the U.S. government thinks and what they are permitted to do. This puts them in a better position to either ratify or reject decisions made on their behalf by the elected officials.



In a nut shell, Americans acknowledge that intelligence will at some point be forced to conduct secrete operations. However, they don't believe that the agencies ought to rely on secrete laws. It is amazing that the Americans learned that Section 215 of the USA Patriotic Act has on several occasions been secretly interpreted to authorize for collection of phone records for the American citizens on unprecedented scale. These are programs that help to identify the so-called dots. However, it is a fact that there will always be dots to collect, analyze, make connections and links. The government is in the process of collecting data from millions of Americans, based on secrete legal interpretation on statutes which do not expressly authorize such bulk collection. The question we ought to ask is what will follow next and when shall the Americans say enough is enough. Do these surveillance programs violate the Citizen's civil liberties?



The government draws a lot of powers from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It uses the powers to monitor communication from its citizens.

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In fact, it is now true that the NSA's activities are dangerous and jeopardizes democracy in America (Schneirer).



After conducting investigation concerning intelligence abuses that were perpetrated in the previous decades, the church committee opined that the democracy of America and its fundamentals were under serious threats because of government surveillance. The opinion is more relevant in the modern society. In the recent decades, NSA has been afforded more resources while the constitutional and statutory limitations have steadily been eroded. Advanced technology has moved surveillance to unprecedented levels. The growth of digital technology has changed the definition of the battlefield and the nature of the war fare. Also, the courts are playing a role in countering the achievements of our Founding Fathers. The Quinnipiac (University) which is a respected poll established that most people thought that the government is encroaching a lot on the civil liberties of Americans.



This is certainly a huge swing especially if we consider the outcome of the same survey a few years ago. It is also true that the number has continued to increase. The Americans have an opportunity to discuss the impact of government surveillance as they continue to get more information on the vice. More Americans are expected to start speaking out. Soon, they will say that it is useless to settle for one priority and that the laws should be written so that they provide security and protect privacy. The laws need not be secretive (Do the National Security Agency Surveillance Programs Violate American Citizens' Civil Liberties?).



There is a school of thought, which believes that keeping the surveillance laws secretive is important since it makes it easier to gain insight into terrorist activities and foreign powers. If the logic is followed, then when the congress passed the foreign intelligence Surveillance Act in 1970s, they ought to have found a way that could make it secretive. This would make it difficult for the Soviet agents to know what the FBI surveillance authorities were doing. However, things did not work that way. The fundamental principles of American democracy require that the laws should not just be made public when the government's officials dim fit to do so. The laws should always be in the public domain and open to the courts review. They should also be subject to changes by an….....

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Works Cited


Schneier, Bruce. "What We Don't Know about Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know." The Atlantic, 6 June 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

"The monitoring of our phone calls? Government spooks may be listening." Global Research, 22 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. Comment by babyliza: No in-text citations

"The government is spying on us through our computers, phones, cars, buses, Streetlights, at airports and on the street, via mobile scanners and drones, through our smart meters, and in many other ways." 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

Do the National Security Agency Surveillance Programs Violate American Citizens' Civil Liberties? International Debates [serial online]. September 2013;11(6):21-40. Available from: Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 14, 2016.

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