“What Edward Snowden did was very wrong but it also had some very good effects on the rest of the country,” says Martin, an 8th grader at Everett Middle School. “But I think he should still go to prison because he has committed a federal crime.” I too think that he should go to prison because hacking into the NSA is no joke. The NSA (National Security Agency) is a company in the US where they can see what everybody is doing on the devices that they have. This can severely impact people who don’t want all their calls and texts monitored. This is happening right now right now in the US. This is happening because Edward Snowden hacked the NSA and leaked all the information. Edward Snowden is the one who hacked the NSA and then fled the country. The NSA should NOT be allowed to spy on us because it makes us feel less safe, it violates our privacy and makes everyone seem like a suspect so they feel guilty.
One of the most powerful arguments for why the NSA should not be able to spy on us is that it violates the Constitution. The Constitution is a list fundamental principles usually used by the government. As it says in the article,“ We are requesting a ruling confirming that the blanket collection of Americans' telephone metadata without reasonable cause violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution”(Rand Paul, Matt Kibbe, and Ken Cuccinelli pg.3) This means that all the information that the government is collecting about us violates the Fourth Amendment. This supports the claim by it saying that this spying program violates the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is a law made by the U.S. Constitution stating that everyone has the right to have the privacy in their homes and wherever they go.
The second reason for why the NSA should NOT be able to spy on us is that hackers can get into the programs and steal people’s personal information. In order to hack into the program you need to hack into the NSA itself and then you can do anything from there. As it says in an article,” 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”(Ariel Dorfman pg.3). This means that the people should be afraid if someone hacks into their phone calls or texts because you never know who is listening to your conversations. This is argument helps support the claim that the NSA should not be able to spy on us because as it said in the article the Americans should fear that their conversations are being watched.
The final argument for why the NSA should not be allowed to spy on us is that spying on citizens without true evidence that they may be a suspect makes everyone guilty. This means that they need specific evidence in order to spy on you. Maybe like if u are a terrorist or came from terrorism. As it says in this article,“ Since 2006, the NSA has been spying on us, treating American citizens as no more than common criminals, casting suspicion on honest people with not even a whisper of criminal about them. These are not the actions befitting a country activity that was once held up as a paragon of freedom and a model for the rest of the world.”(Rand Paul, Matt Kibbe, and Ken Cuccinelli pg.3) This information shows that the NSA has been treating EVERYONE like criminals. They have been watching what we are doing everyday for the past 10 years. This supports the argument that the NSA should not be able to spy on us by it saying that they have been watching us since 2006 and they haven’t told us about it until 2013 when Edward Snowden hacked into the NSA.
While it’s clear that the NSA shouldn’t be able to spy on us, some people might argue that the NSA should be able to spy on us American citizens because it doesn’t affect anybody who isn’t suspicious. For example as the U.S. Senator Marco Rubio states “The government is not listening to your phone calls or recording them unless you are a terrorist or talking to a terrorist outside the United States. Despite recent court rulings, this program has not been found unconstitutional, and the courts have not ordered a halt to the program”(Rubio pg.3). However, this is a misguided argument. Simply because it states that the NSA is only going to listen to your phone calls unless you are a terrorist. But how would they know that the person is a terrorist and that they are talking to a terrorist.
While it is still obvious that the NSA should not be able to spy on us, some people still might think that they should be able to spy on us because it has prevented many terrorist attacks over the past ten years. For instance as the Sen. Marco Rubio argues that “FBI Director James Comey warned last week that potentially, thousands of terrorist sympathizers in the United States are being self-radicalized online by foreign terrorists associated with the Islamic State who are urging them to conduct attacks against Americans in our cities and towns”(Rubio pg.2). However this is illogical argument. Simply because it states that it has prevented many attacks over the past ten years, this doesn’t mean they have prevented them if the NSA has to listen to millions of phone calls everyday and how can they know that they are planning a terrorist attack.
Regardless of what others might argue, I still think that the NSA should not be able to spy on us American citizens because it makes us feel less safe, violates our privacy, and makes everyone seem like a suspect so they feel guilty. This topic is critical because you wouldn’t want anyone spying on you and watching your every move every day. In order to stop the NSA from spying on us, I propose that we should have a protest and make all the devices you use in your everyday life unhackable. If we make all the devices unhackable then everyone would have a lot of privacy and they won’t have to worry if someone is listening to their phone call or reading their texts.
No comments:
Post a Comment