America, Since Its Inception, Was a Country Dedicated to Upholding the Individual And

1984?

America, since its inception, was a country dedicated to upholding the individual and unalienable freedoms that every human being is born with. These freedoms were called rights. They were termed rights because that is exactly what they are; not privileges but rights. America also established a government and legislations to uphold these intrinsic rights: the United States Constitution. The Constitution did not give us our rights, it purely guaranteed that these rights were unalienable and would be upheld.Those rights provided the foundation for an era of freedom and prosperity that was pretty much unprecedented in human history(Snyder 1). Of course our system was not without its faults but when compared to the other major powers around that time our system was a “bright light in a sea of oppression and totalitarianism” (Snyder 1). In current times however, the freedoms that were promised to us in the United States Constitution are now under fire. Every time you turn on the television or read a current event, there is always a new law or legislation that tweaks our interpretation of the rights granted in the Constitution. These concessions are often times in favor of the government; allowing them to infiltrate further and further into our homes under the guise of protection. The more concessions we allow the government to make in order to suit the situation, the less freedom we ourselves have at the end of the day. The government has taken advantage ofvarious situations and circumstances in order to systematically strip the American people of our rights which are outlined in the U.S Constitution’s Bill of Rights. If thispattern is allowed to continue, in the not too distant future our descendants will live in an America where privacy and basic rights are a luxury the government is not obligated to give them.

The right to privacy in America is quickly declining. New technologies available to both the federal and state government are all encompassing and can be used to spy on anyone deemed suspicious. Recently, a court ruled that it was completely okay for government officials and cops to plant a tracking or listening device on your car when it is in the driveway (Cohen 1). The U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that the government can monitor you in this matter “virtually any time it wants, no warrants needed.”(Cohen 1). This method of surveillance was used to apprehend a resident suspected of growing marijuana in his home. If the people of American are willing to let the government employ these types of practices in order to catch a citizen suspected of growing marijuana, what types of methods will we consent to in order to catch suspected terrorists? If we, as Americans, continue to allow our rights to be waived in certain situations, we invite mass surveillance into our lives. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis noted in 1928 that “The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping,” (Bamford). This quote was stated almost a century ago but it still rings true. Today, the government’s capacity to eavesdrop is leagues beyond what anyone could have thought of. The government now possesses the technology to spy on almost every single citizen in the United States simultaneously and after the Patriot Act of 2001 they don’t even need our permission.

The Patriot Act was arguably the largest concession to government snooping that we as Americans made. It was a time of uncertainty and fear and the government used this time of fear to quickly pass the Patriot Act through Congress. Not six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center the Patriot Act was already in effect (Minow 3). The bill was passed with virtually no debate during the apex of the anthrax contamination scare when many lawmakers did not have access to their offices (Minow 1). Essentially, the Patriot Act was passed under very strenuous times when patriotism and fear was at an all-time high. Many people who couldstand against it and really inspect the fine print thoroughly couldn’t even enter their offices and most people in the Senate hadn’t even had time to read the summaries by the time it was passed, let alone scrutinize the finer details. The government played on the mounting fears of terrorists, anthrax, and also on the increased patriotism the American people were feeling. So naturally when we saw a new legislation called Patriot Act, we were all for it. The 132 pages of the Patriot Act could not possibly have been drafted and reformed in the month from the terrorist attack to the legislation being reviewed. This begs the question: was the government waiting, or worse, expecting something like 9/11 to happen so they could push this obvious breach of privacy laws through Congress? Also, the Patriot Act doesn’t just cover surveillance laws; it also covers a plethora of potentially controversial subjects that the government was waiting to pass (O Brien 1). The “Patriot Act also extends FISA authority by including roving wiretaps that can follow a person from a public phone to a neighbor’s computer to a library computer,” (Schwartz 4). This basically insinuates that no longer do search warrants have to specifically describe the place to be searched. By doing this, the government can spy on anyone it chooses by weaving through the numerous holes intentionally left in the Patriot Act.

This is exactly what they have been doing since the Patriot Act was signed. They have been collecting data on all American citizens and it’s all legal according to the Patriot Act. Since they have been doing most of this data collecting offof American soil, they haven’t been doing anything wrong technically. NSA (National Security Agency) whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA has been secretly ordering Verizon and other companies like Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, Youtube, and Apple to hand over unknown volumes of information from their collective millions of customers (Schell 2). The amount of data one is able to extract from just cellphone surveillance is mind-boggling: location tracking, contact information, and conversation tracing. Even our illnesses, sources of entertainment, and contact lists are traced and agglomerated (Tigar 2). Schell notes that “Surveillance of people on this scale turns basic liberties—above all the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure—into a dead letter,”(4). Schell goes on to say that “They (the Government) tell is that although they couldknow everything about us, they won’t decide to” (4). This should not calm or assure anyone that just because they decide not to use this information now, that it’s okay to have. Just because the Government isn’t using the information they have right not doesn’t mean they won’t use it in the future. Presidents change frequently, and what one president refuses to do, the other will surely. Our system of checks and balances is actually working against the American people in this situation. Instead of castigating one another for mass surveillance; they have colluded with each other to support the executive branch’s cloak of secrecy (Schell 6). After the terrorist attacks in 2001, Bush initiated warrantless domestic surveillance in complete disregard for the law. Congress shouldhave reprimanded Bush for this, but instead they “adopt the worst features of the Bush program as law, in the Protect America Act of 2007 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008,”(Schell 6). Even the judicial branch is not clean; the FISA court almost never declines government demands. It seems as if all three branches of government are working together in order to further erase our freedoms.

America is slowly turning into something out a fiction novel with all of these new policies and laws. There has been a recent anti-gun push in the media. While this view is very valid, the idea of changing or amending a constitutional right should not be taken lightly. Just because of the recent mass shootings that transpired, the media is talking about banning automatic and assault weapons. This would basically limit pistols to be the only commercially available type of firearm. The reason the right to bear arms was even implemented in the constitution was to protect the people against a tyrannical government. This view sounds paranoid and overly-cautious in this current situation but who’s to know what situation we will be in in the future. Our rights should not be overlooked or taken lightly of simply because it isn’t completely necessary in our current situation. Our rights and freedoms are upheld in order to protect against tyrannical government. Just because we don’t have a tyrannical government doesn’t mean we should allow changes in our given rights so easily. If we allow this to continue, we would be making the same mistake as the citizens of Nazi Germany. Milton Mayer noted in his famous book on Nazi Germany that“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes” (3). Does this not sound chillingly similar to what our government has recently been doing? Our rights are the only thing stopping our government from becoming tyrannical and if we continue to make concessions we will be inviting tyranny into our political system.

Some believe that if we sit and whether the storm, it will eventually go away. This view is based on all the past instances of American rights being violated. Like when the Japanese-Americans were put into concentration camps during WWII when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and locked up the entirety of the state legislature without criminal charge in order to inhibit a vote of secession(Greenberg 1). They believe that this country has suffered many notable affronts to our constitutional rights and have managed to always right ourselves time and time again.

This train of thinking is hopeful at best. The key difference between those instances of constitutional sacrifice and this current instance is that this breach has been going on far longer than the ones in the past. This breach has been perpetrated on a much grander scale and with much more secrecy than before. Also this time around, private companies are in collusion with the government. The privacy violations show no signs of stopping. Technology is advancing so fast that within a few decades, the government could have the power to individually monitor every single person in the United States without much effort on their part (McAvoy 32). This is not the time to wait and see if the government finally sees that what they’re doing is wrong. If we wait any longer, privacy as we know it will be destroyed.

Many also argue that what the NSA does is required and perfectly necessary. They also argue that we, as a people, should not be overly worried if we are law-abiding citizens. It is that type of submissive and docile reasoning that sanctions countries to be taken over by tyrannical rulers. It is as much a sin against the person who let it happen as it is against the person actually committing the crime. Some also argue that this kind of monitoring is absolutely necessary in order to catch terrorists before another attack. This claim is unfounded because there has never been an instance in which the NSA’s surveillance of our bulk internet data and phone records has anticipated and stopped a terrorist attack (Lewis 1). Even if it did, would the mass surveillance and scrutiny of millions of people in order to perhaps stop another Boston Bombing incident be a fair trade-off? Do the ends justify the means?

Privacy is the most intimate of rights that have been secured through the constitution. The NSA is trampling on those rights through deceit. They are paying large companies in order to get your information. They aren’t spying on suspected terrorists, they are spying on us. If we continue to make concessions and exceptions in times of crisis or otherwise, where will we be in 50 years? This pattern of making exceptions in order to suit the governments desires needs to end before our rights and freedoms erode completely. If we are just complacent we will let the government walk all over us. We have an obligation to preserve our liberties for the future generation of Americans.

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