The year was 1973. A CIA-backed coup had toppled Chile’s democratic government and killed its president, Salvador Allende. In its place, a new military junta had arisen, lead by the imposing General Augusto Pinochet. The presidential palace was in ruins, and a 48-hour curfew was active, with the penalty for defying it being death. Amid this chaotic backdrop, Ariel Dorfman was trapped in a single house, along with fellow militants. Although it was his wife Angelica’s birthday, he had no presents for her, nothing to offer except for the news of his survival. Despite the curfew, Dorfman traveled outside in order to use the nearest phone, which was located in a small bungalow a few blocks down, in order to call his wife and make sure she was okay, as well as reassure himself that he had not lost everything. But, as Dorfman put it, “The conversation, however, troubled me. Only a few days before, we would have liberally shared our thoughts and openly talked about our friends. Now trepidation haunted our every word. Not knowing who might be listening, each phrase was guarded, cautious, obscure, full of allusions and double meanings. ‘I heard Amanda's father is in the hospital,’ Angélica said, relaying that the singer and political activist Victor Jara had been arrested. ‘In intensive care?’ I asked, wondering if they'd killed him. ‘The doctors won't say,’ she replied. And so it went.” (Dorfman,2)
The dictatorship lasted 17 more years. Pinochet’s spies seemed to be everywhere, searching Chile’s nooks and crannies for anyone or anything that opposed the regime, like predators searching for their prey. Those who were caught were imprisoned and tortured. Some, like Dorfman, were exiled. Others were killed. Fear hung like a cloud of darkness over the country, the threat of constant surveillance preventing people from freely speaking their minds. Privacy had been reduced to a dream. The “free” nation of Chile was free no more.
Chile is not the only country where surveillance ran rampant. Here in the US, today, Americans are also being watched by the government, although the difference is that many of us may not realize it at all. The National Security Agency (NSA) has created various computer programs designed for surveillance, with their purpose being to spy on Americans in hopes of detecting terrorists within our borders. These programs are often top secret and inaccessible to anyone aside from the NSA agents that use them. Many in the American public don’t even know that they exist. Very few members of our own government have the authorization needed to view them, and even then, they are closely watched and are not allowed to take notes on anything they find. If former NSA contractor Edward Snowden hadn’t recently defied his overseers and released top secret documents containing information on the organization’s programs and procedures to the nation’s public, the agency’s activities would have remained unknown.
As Snowden has revealed, the NSA’s programs have collected personal information on thousands, possibly millions of Americans without them knowing it at all. This, along with other elements of the matter, has sparked a nationwide controversy over the right the NSA has to spy on the public, if any, as well as whether we’re allowing our country to become a “surveillance state”. At this point, it is clear that the NSA should not be allowed to spy on American citizens because the spying programs are not truly effective in protecting us from terrorism, the programs violate our privacy and the Constitution, and the information collected could be used against those who disagree with the NSA or our government.
It is clear that the NSA should not be allowed to spy on Americans. One reason why is because the spying programs are not truly effective in protecting us from terrorism. In the CNN article, “Stop the NSA While We Still Can”, written by Senator Rand Paul, Matt Kibbe and Ken Cuccinelli, Paul argues why the NSA must be stopped before its spying gets out of hand, despite the agency’s claims that the programs are necessary. According to Paul, “These assurances of the necessity to give up a little privacy for the sake of safety are made all the less convincing by the fact that, after more than seven years, the NSA has been unable to provide any evidence that the collection of telephone metadata from Americans has led to the prevention of even a single terrorist attack.” (Paul, 2) In other words, the NSA hasn’t been able to prove that its programs help prevent terrorist attacks for years now. This demonstrates that the NSA’s programs are not truly effective in protecting us from terrorism, as the agency has not provided any proof that its programs actually do what the agency claims they do.
Some people might argue that the NSA should be allowed to spy on Americans because the programs have already prevented many terrorist attacks over the past 10 years. In the Tom’s Guide article, “How the NSA’s Spying Keeps You Safe”, the author Marshall Honorof argues that the NSA’s programs do indeed keep Americans safe from terrorism. In it, he provides a quote from NSA director Keith Alexander, which says, : " ‘What we're talking about is future terrorist attacks,’ Alexander said, discussing a number of planned attacks that the NSA foiled over the last 10 years. ‘It is worth considering what would have happened in the world if those attacks — 42 of those 54 were terrorist plots — if they were successfully executed. What would that mean to our civil liberties and privacy?’ ” (Honorof,2) This claim does contain some flaws, however. A major one is that the person who provided the information is an NSA member himself! As such, he is biased in favor of the agency, and as a result would provide only information that supports the NSA. Also, according to the evidence in the previous paragraph, the NSA has not provided convincing or reliable proof that the programs have prevented the attacks mentioned, or even if the attacks they might have prevented were actual terrorist plots, which renders this argument ultimately ineffective.
It is clear that the NSA should not be allowed to spy on Americans. Another reason why is because the programs violate American citizens’ privacy, whether accidental or intentional. In the article,”Audit: NSA Repeatedly Broke Privacy Rules”, written for the Washington Post, the author Barton Gellman talks about how the NSA has repeatedly shown disregard for the law when it comes to spying. As Gellman says, “The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.” (Gellman) This reveals how the NSA has been collecting data on thousands of Americans for some time now, some of it by accident, some of it on purpose, and that it has violated a court order and used data without legal authorization. This illustrates that the NSA has violated American citizens’ privacy many times before, whether by accident or on purpose, and they will continue to do so unless they are stopped. Also, in the same article, Gellman reveals many other incidents besides that one of the NSA violating privacy. As he says, “ But a single ‘incident’ in February 2012 involved the unlawful retention of 3,032 files that the surveillance court had ordered the NSA to destroy, according to the May 2012 audit. Each file contained an undisclosed number of telephone call records.” (Gellman) This shows that the NSA not only violates privacy by recording personal information without people knowing it, but also keeps the information, regardless of whether they were ordered to destroy it or not. This illustrates how the NSA keeps personal information even if they aren’t supposed to.
It is clear that the NSA should not be allowed to spy on Americans. Another reason why is that the programs violate the Constitution. In “Audit: NSA Repeatedly Broke Privacy Rules”, Barton Gellman talks about a court hearing that involved the NSA and their spying programs. As Gellman states, :“In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional. The court said that the methods used were ‘deficient on statutory and constitutional grounds,’ according to a top-secret summary of the opinion, and it ordered the NSA to comply with standard privacy protections or stop the program. James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.” (Gellman) This shows that the NSA’s spying programs are unconstitutional, but also that the NSA has already realized that, and has continued its programs anyway. This illustrates that the NSA has shown disregard for the Constitution by continuing to use its programs, and that since the programs have been deemed unconstitutional, they should be discontinued.
Some people might argue that the programs are actually not unconstitutional. In the USA Today article, “Now’s No Time to End NSA Programs”, Senator Marco Rubio argues that the NSA should be allowed to continue its surveillance. As he claims, “Despite recent court rulings, this program has not been found unconstitutional, and the courts have not ordered a halt to the program. In fact, this program has been found legal and constitutional by at least 15 federal judges serving on the FISA Court on 35 occasions.” (Rubio,2) This argument does contain faulty beliefs, however. If the FISA Court has ruled that the programs are legal and constitutional, then how do you explain the ruling described in the evidence for the second paragraph? Even the NSA themselves have acknowledged that the programs are unconstitutional! And how do we know those judges weren’t biased in favor of the NSA? Also, looking at the Fourth Amendment itself, which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,” wouldn’t invading Americans’ privacy without a good reason count as being unreasonable? Clearly, this argument is ineffective.
It is clear that the NSA should not be allowed to spy on Americans. Another reason why is because the personal information collected by the programs may be used to harm those who disagree with the NSA or the government. In “Stop the NSA While We Still Can”, Rand Paul points to how the NSA’s collected information could be used against people in the future. As Paul exclaims, “We have already seen government agencies like the IRS specifically target law-abiding citizens for their political views. The willingness of ordinary people to criticize the government will be greatly compromised by being under the constant, watchful eye of the government, and anyone deemed guilty of suspicious activity may consider an audit the least of their worries.” (Paul,3) This shows that government agencies have already used people’s personal information against them, and that incidents like this may discourage the public from criticizing the government. This is important because the NSA may use their collected information to target people in the same way that other government institutions have in the past, especially those who disagree with them, which may cause Americans to live in constant fear of them. Also, in the Washington Post article, “In NSA-Intercepted Data, Those Not Targeted Far Outnumber the Foreigners Who Are”, Barton Gellman, Julie Tate, and Ashkan Soltani explore how ordinary people from all over the world are often caught in the communications interceptions that the NSA’s spying programs perform. At one point in the article, they provide the opinion of Edward Snowden himself. As Snowden says, “ ‘Even if one could conceivably justify the initial, inadvertent interception of baby pictures and love letters of innocent bystanders,’ he[Edward Snowden] added, ‘their continued storage in government databases is both troubling and dangerous.Who knows how that information will be used in the future?’ “ (Gellman, Tate, Soltani) This means that the NSA could do anything with the information they have collected. This matters because the NSA could use the information for unknown and possibly dangerous purposes unless they are exposed for what they are doing.
A claim I once heard from a classmate is that the NSA’s programs don’t “affect anybody who isn’t suspicious.” This argument is definitely a faulty assumption. How do we know if the programs can properly distinguish between those who are “suspicious” and those who are not without invading privacy? And even if the NSA checks over the data for relevant information, how do we know that they won’t make any mistakes, or keep the data after they’re done? This argument is, without a doubt, ineffective.
In conclusion, the NSA should not be allowed to spy on Americans because the spying programs are not truly effective in protecting us from terrorism; violate American citizens’ privacy, whether accidental or intentional, as well as the Constitution; and the personal information collected by the programs may be used to harm those who disagree with the NSA or the government. Across history, dictators and tyrants have used espionage to keep their countries’ people in constant fear and to prevent them from speaking their minds, thus ensuring that they stayed in power. If the NSA continues to run rampant with their surveillance, and is not required by the government to explain their actions or obey the laws of the country and the Constitution, then our government may very well become like the dictators that have appeared in the past, and the ones that exist in the present. If we are to prevent this, it is critical that the NSA be more transparent about their actions. The government should pass laws that require the agency to do so, and those laws should be vigilantly enforced. We should also make sure that the people enforcing the laws are unbiased, as if they do carry strong bias in favor of or against the NSA, then that bias may influence how serious they are about their job, as well as what they report to the government. If we do this, then we shall not become a “surveillance state”, our citizens will have greater privacy, and the US shall remain the “free” nation that it was meant to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment