1984 Privacy Issues

In today's society most people feel that they are being watched by our government just like winston and the citizens of Oceania are being watched by Big Brother. The type of Technology being used in 1984 are, telescreens hidden to watch people. It is almost as similar to our government watching us, but instead our device is a cell phone. They can read our texts messages, hear conversations through phone calls, & possibly track you down if necessary. Many people argue that this is an invasion of privacy and many say it's for the safety of the communities.

Since the separation the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, felt as though the NSA was hiding something. In 1970, President Richard Nixon decided to bring the FBI, NSA, and the Central Intelligence Agency into one big rule under the control of the White House. However, Hoover declined and became part of the other agencies. The author doesn’t explain why he quit but produces the suspicious thought that the NSA has been hiding

Edward Snowden sparked huge sensational news stories and debates over the groundbreaking revelation of the massive surveillance program that was authorized by Congress and the president of the United States of America. It was formally presented as the USA PATRIOT Act by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. The PATRIOT Act was approved by a large bipartisan majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The PATRIOT Act soon went under the radar as the US went into war in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Edward Snowden forced up the issue of civil liberties and national security once again when he released documents specifically pertaining to the National Security Agency out to The Guardian.

Some Americans believe that the Patriot Act is a violation of privacy, but the government takes crucial steps to ensure the privacy of all law-abiding Americans. Despite contrary beliefs, the

Since September 11th, fear connected with national security threats has shifted to fear of the federal government. The U.S.A. Patriot Act certainly caused much anxiety amongst society. Signed by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, this act increased law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers, “The purpose of the USA PATRIOT Act is to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes.” Clearly, federal agents have abused their power, as personal information, telephone calls, and Internet searches were and are being recorded and saved. A recent news article, posted in The Guardian, fully elucidates the intrusive government spying of American citizens, “the watchlist tracks ‘known’ and ‘suspected’ terrorists and includes both foreigners and Americans.

The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952 for collecting, processing, and protecting information for the United State government. In 2013 Edward Snowden, an employee of an NSA contractor, flew to Hong Kong and meet with journalist to start the process of revealing information about the organizations collection of metadata on US citizens. The metadata included phone calls, txt messages, and thing that people entered into search engines. The documentary Citizen Four captures Snowden’s days in Hong Kong and his conversations with the journalist involved.

It evolve over time and President George W. Bush’s "Terrorist Surveillance Program" had created PRISM. This program gave NSA access to “Big Data” like phone’s metadata and data that are sent over the internet (Gellman B and Poitras L). This issue became aware to the public at June 6th, 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed to the items to The Guardian.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows U.S. intelligence agencies to acquire foreign intelligence information by monitoring foreign persons in the USA and abroad. This act ensures that intelligence agencies can respond in time to terminate a security threat. The most important part of this act, the Section 702 forbids deliberate monitoring of US citizens and their communication. Technically NSA has been violating this act ever since it has been enacted in 2008 because, as we know, they have been monitoring all US citizenry.

While there are still debates on the exact scope of government surveillance, the fact that there have been steps taken to limit its excesses shows that the United States values individual rights. As technology advances and security threats evolve, it will be important for policymakers to continue to evaluate the role of surveillance in national security and ensure that privacy protections are not sacrificed in the name of

US News reports the FISA and USA Patriot Act as a "privacy scandal" (Fox, 2013). NPR News reports the concern of "civil liberty[ies] groups" protesting the USA Patriot Act and the concern for the authorities to demand business records from various companies (Johnson, 2011, p.1). What the media fails to convey to the general public is the intent of these Acts is to combat terrorism and not to invade privacy. Millions of people travel the world every day snapping photos from their digital cameras and iPhones. Perhaps to capture a memory or an unusual event, and sometimes other people in the background.

According to the text “Our value is founded on a unique and deep understanding of risks, vulnerabilities, mitigations, and threats. Domestic Surveillance plays a vital role in our national security by using advanced data mining systems to "connect the dots" to identify suspicious patterns” (NSA). One of the slogans of the NSA is, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. However, if you have nothing to hide there is no argumentation as to why the NSA taps into any form of communication or access to the internet. Therefore, this withdraws the power of the people and puts it directly back into the government and, simultaneously belittles citizen’s

The NSA got away for breaking the law while Snowden was portrayed as a traitor to the entire country because he could not sit back and watch the U.S government destroy the privacy of its people. The NSA had gotten too powerful with its "massive surveillance machine" they are secretly building. After the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001 happened, the NSA has used every chance they have been given to tell the public that what they are doing is for America’s benefit. Although this may of have been true at first, it certainly is not now. The Homeland security passed laws that were meant to prevent terrorist attacks by monitoring the phone calls of the citizenry for our safety.

The National Security Agency is an intelligence organization in the United States that monitors not only foreign countries but American citizens as well. Known as a whistleblower to some, but a true hero, Edward Snowden leaked classified documents from the NSA leaving almost everyone second guessing the government and how secure their phones are. Edward Snowden dropped out of his high school before he was even 16 years old and went to community college instead because he wanted to study computers. He attended Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland two different times. This first was from 1999 to 2001 and then again from 2004 to 2005.

The main issue in the Snowden controversy is the conflicting rights of private individuals and the US government with regard to the use of telecommunications and the internet. There are ethical issues surrounding this controversy and the most applicable ethical approach for this case is “Ethics by Rights Approach”. As a background, the reason why US government had declared Edward Snowden a traitor is his involvement in the leaking of about 1.7 million confidential US documents, 15,000 Australian intelligence files and 58,000 British intelligence files from the National Security Agency (or NSA) to the public. These confidential information were acquired by the NSA through the PRISM program by collaborating with big internet companies such

CITIZENFOUR ESSAY I believe everyone needs to have privacy, and privacy is a condition that on my opinion, should not be violated. Because it is the right to keeps people’s matters and relationships secret. The NSA, CIA and GCHQ are logging into people’s lives according to Edward Snowden in the movie ‘’Citizenfour’’. I don’t think what they are doing is okay, because I consider it is an invasion on private life.