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Hi, I'm Ben Blum. Imagine if you could monitor the governments every move.
Imagine if you had access to the governments private, classified documents.
If the government found out about this, you would be subject to arrest and prosecution
under federal law.
In reality, the United States government has been spying on ordinary citizens for years,
which is both illegal and unconstitutional.
October 4th, 2001. 23 days after the fall of the Twin Towers,
President George W. Bush issues a secret order
that authorizes a variety of surveillance tools
to be used within the U.S. to combat terrorism,
including digital spying on Americans online and telephone communications.
In 2014, the government is still using these surveillance tactics.
In the summer of 2013, Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency's PRISM program,
which intercepts and collects data on American citizens with
absolutely no connection to terrorism, including their emails with family, chats with
their friends, and private videos and photos. The NSA has access to all our data and internet
communications. Consequently, in the Internet Era, everyone's privacy has
the potential to be compromised.
The United States government applies multiple tactics to spy on ordinary citizens.
The bottom line is that all of these surveillance techniques share the same sole purpose:
to collect information for defensive or offensive purposes. The prevention of terrorist attacks
on US and foreign soil is clearly a benefit. However, the overuse of surveillance in the
United States is unconstitutional.
Surveillance cannot be an advantage if it breaches civil rights to a high degree.
For another perspective, I spoke with NSA whistleblower and former
AT&T communications technician Mark Klein, who revealed his
company's cooperation with the NSA in installing hardware to monitor and capture American
telecommunications in the famous Room 641A
Government surveillance is a
critical
that Congress must address in 2014. The fact that the government
is targeting and using billions of emails, chats, and other data without a warrant
or even probable cause is a breach of the Constitution - the basis for all of Americans
freedoms.
While it is the government's duty to protect the citizens of the United States,
the 4th Amendment protects all U.S. citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.
For this reason, Congress should craft public policies that limit surveillance to specific
suspected terrorists; prohibit warrantless surveillance;
and require the NSA to obtain individual search warrants for people of interest.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's Executive Vice President of Legal Affairs said,