The NSA: Far From Protection

Espionage—a word that evokes the image of fictional stories and characters like James Bond or Homeland, a romantic interpretation of a life full of mystery and intrigue. But this detracts from the real nature of spying: an endless, “under the table” quest for information that stretches across the globe. The stealthy well-dressed sleuth, hidden under a coat of secrecy, has been replaced with the hacker sitting behind a computer monitor, sifting though the personal data of millions of Americans. Nothing is off the table in searching through this information comprised of our text messages, emails, voices messages, and phone calls. They are all accessible to agents of a secretive government organization called the National Security Agency.The National Security Agency was first founded in 1952 for the purposes of gaining advantages in decision-making for ourselves and our allies in regards to foreign policy. Today, this doctrine means finding out as much data as possible to capture or kill terrorists. To do this, the NSA has enacted Prism, a program that watches the electronic data of all Americans. You may be wondering how the program was deemed constitutional, considering that under the fourth amendment people have the right of privacy and the right from search unless a warrant specifies the need to search something. The answer is that undercover courts known as FISA courts that authorize the searching of the phones of Americans. FISA courts ironically were originally made in response to Watergate, a scandal that partially involved the federal government listening into or wiretapping the phone calls of Americans. They are now being used to serve out mass warrants to millions of American people, all for the same purpose: gathering more information to fight terrorism. In the government’s eyes every American could be a terrorist waiting to carry out his next attack. This is a highly distressful overreach of the United States government. Never before in history has the United States government taken such drastic measures for the purposes of national security, not even in the time of the world war two did the United States government try to spy on all of the American people. The rational behind this decision is the more information the NSA has, the more likely the government is to find terrorists, and yet it has not even foiled a single terrorist plot.The National Security Agency spying on Americans is a dangerous treat to our everyday lives. While right now it is supposedly only used for the fight on terror, the information gathered in this program may very well be used for other purposes from fighting terrorists. We can already look into the past to see if this will happen by looking at the Patriot Act, a bill signed into law in the wake of 9/11 that expanded executive power in regards to fighting terrorist and gathering espionage. While this bill was originally meant only to fight terrorism, it was later used to persecute other people, for example in 2003 the patriot act was used convict a Los Vegas strip club owner of handing out bribes to public officials. While these bribes may have been a crime, it certainly did not present a national security risk. Who is to know whether the NSA’s newly gathered information will be used to convict drug dealers or child pornographers, this creates a very slippery slope where wiretapping terrorists one day can turn into wiretapping thieves the next. While terrorism is a horrifying occurrence in the world that kills many people, is life really worth living when you have no freedom or liberty, I believe not. NSA spying is just one step closer to a society not unlike the one envisioned by George Orwell in “1984,” where the dictator Big Brother sought to control people’s minds and thoughts. By giving up our personal information to the government, we are giving up the rights given to us by the constitution. When America was first founded a short 237 years ago, we were founded on the principles of freedom and liberty from oppression. Let’s keep these ideas in mind as we navigate a world in which the United States government is seeking more invasive control of our lives. 