Spying Agencies at What $Cost? - Stella White

   “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” I believe the government has abused their power with citizens’ taxes and the spying agencies. The government can help prevent terrorism in other ways that will be effective. The government should balance out america's contribution to helping prevent terrorism. Here is what my dad thinks, “Because I have a good relationship with the government, we were able to form trust which made our company less suspicious of anything to do with terrorism.” My dad works at chargepoint and user experience where he works much with technology. But because the government agrees with my dad's work and approves of how my dads work is so beneficial to our earth and advances with technology, he believes that if the government can form this kind of trust and bond with the rest of the country, there will be less of a need to spy on citizens and make more enemies or rupture trust

  My first reason for why the government shouldn’t spy on its citizens is because the spying programs simply violate the constitution without any remorse of who will be affected. This is important because the government should pay attention to how citizens of america feel about these spying agencies. Here is an example and evidence of the constitution the government's spying has violated, Civil Liberties:

(Civil liberties is the name given to a number of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights that protect U.S. citizens from undue restrictions by the government. Many civil libertarians believe that the liberties are slowly being eroded away.)

Freedom of Speech

Some of the issues involved with free speech include whether pornography and hate speech should be banned, whether it should be illegal to desecrate the country’s flag, and whether the content and words on television and radio can or should be censored.

Right to Privacy

Although the U.S. Constitution contains no explicit right to privacy, the Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have a right to privacy in their homes, with their medical care, and with their beliefs.

Broadcast Censorship

The Federal Communications Commission regulates broadcast television and radio. Some people claim that the censorship is necessary to protect young children and others who object to the offensive words and images.

Patriot Act

The Patriot Act expanded the ability of law enforcement to search for, do surveillance on, and arrest terrorist suspects. Many people believe the law’s provisions infringe on civil liberties, while its supporters contend the laws are necessary to fight terrorism.

Internet Filters

Schools and libraries that receive federal funding for Internet connections must install Internet filters on all public computers to keep children from viewing pornographic sites. Critics claim the filters block important information on topics such as breast cancer.http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=S116427-0-8285&artno=0000337362&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=why%20government%20spy%20policy&title=Current%20Issues%3A%20Civil%20Liberties&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N

  This is a list of civil liberties that may have been violated while in the spying agency! freedom of speech for example was violated because we had no say in what the government felt to do with our information. In my opinion I could care less if the government read my email or listened to a phone call, It's the fact because the government has lots of power and they feel “ok” with violating the constitution because they feel it’s for the best. The government is trying to protect us by gathering it’s citizens information which leads into my next reason that these programs are not even truly effective in preventing terrorism! Stop the NSA while we still can provides evidence of this. “ 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, kibb,cuccinelli)This is evidence that so far for 7+ years this program has not been effective and or beneficial to anyone and has just aimlessly gathered people's information. This should be a sign that the government should be transitioning into a different system of preventing terrorism or try more than one way to prevent terrorism.

  Lastly, spying on people without them knowing causes americans to live in a constant state of fear, for example, “Suspicion on honest people with not even a whisper of criminal activity about them. These are not the actance 2006, the NSA has been spying on us, treating American citizens as no more than common criminals, casting ions befitting a country that was once held up as a paragon of freedom and a model for the rest of the world.”(paul, kibb,cuccinelli) It's upsetting to feel that you will always be a target to the government or seen as guilty. Thus it results in breaking trust with the government and its citizens which will not help the situation of terrorism. A lack of trust is worse. This contributes to the fact that the government also uses the money we make and spend on taxes for useless things that doesn't acknowledged citizens hard work to earn money and give a amounts of it to the government. But the point is that his further makes citizens less fond of the government, not that the government should care whether people get a bit angry but it does go to the fact that the government constantly needs to check on its citizens because it's not unoften that some people get angry and do something extremely stupid that can be very serious and dangerous sometimes connected to terrorism!

. This was expressed in the article “When a Government spies on its citizens,” “there is nothing that compares with the sweeping and unchecked powers of surveillance authorities exercise today. The fact that technology now allows  eavesdroppers to collect every conversation, every intimate exchange, every secret or joke should make Americans tremble. Tremble not only because the potential for abuse is so enormous, but also because such suffocating scrutiny will inevitably corrode and corrupt free expression.” http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0531-dorfman-surveillance-censorship-20150531-story.html This is exactly what limit the government has been pushing, The right of free expression that the government needs to allow to happen in order to maintain a healthy country.

Although many people may justify the government spying by the fact that many other countries do so, and it is infact  true that many other country’s do so, It doesn’t mean spying is the right decision for our country and our values as america.

government. But the point is that his further makes citizens less fond of the government, not that the government should care whether people get a bit angry but it does go to the fact that the government constantly

needs to check on its citizens because it's not unoften that some people get angry and do something extremely stupid that can be very serious and dangerous sometimes connected to terrorism!

   Although many people may justify the government spying by the fact that many other countries do so, and it is infact  true that many other countries do so, It doesn’t mean spying is the right decision for our country and our values as Americans. Although it is important for the government to pay attention to terrorism (because i'm not excluding the fact that there is war and death every day due to terrorism), The fact that someone would justify spying because other countries do so excludes the actual importance of why the government spies.

  Also some say,  “The most important thing to keep in mind is that there is, at present, absolutely no indication that the NSA has done anything illegal or outside the limits of its assigned role. The NSA monitors external threats to the U.S.,”(honnorat 1)

  First off, the NSA monitors threats in america and outside of America. This is why we have a controversy on whether the government should spy or not in the first place. Second, spying and collecting information is going a bit beyond limits, yes it is needed at a certain extent but the government should at least acknowledge the fact that they are being a bit careless with America’s well being can result into more difficulties in America due to the spying agencies.

  Overall, Because of terrorism, America does need the government’s spying agency’s. However, it doesn’t mean it’s the best decision for long! There are other ways the government can help prevent terrorism by using the money they sometimes aimlessly use for spying agencies to provide education and aid the poor. This can help bring America closer and will build trust. The government has been careless about the constitution and long ago the people who wrote the constitution were very afraid of the government gaining too much power. And, in the future these spying agencies can result into a tyrannical government. Many people have felt their rights were violated so if the government paid a bit more attention to America itself and how we can prevent terrorism together and not who is a suspect of terrorism once and awhile it would help America prevent terrorism in a much HEALTHIER way.