Surveillance Essay

The following academic paper highlights the up-to-date issues and questions of Surveillance Essay. This sample provides just some ideas on how this topic can be analyzed and discussed.

If a participant in a phone conversation believes that everything they say is monitored by the government, then their participation in the marketplace f ideas could be chilled due to their perception that they could be punished for exploring politically unpopular or illegal viewpoints. Surveillance and subsequent punishment of ideas explored over telephone wires is legally grounded in US punishment of political advocacy that incites violence in the public sphere.

Although government monitoring of public speech can help promote the greater public good by preventing violence, there is the potential for domestic surveillance to act as a prior restraint on private conversations constitutionally protected through the First Amendment’s guarantee of associational privacy. As we increasingly depend on electronic communication, the domain of the marketplace of ideas has expanded from a physical forum for public discourse, to an electronic sphere of information where people around the world share information over wired and wireless paths.

A “chilling effect” occurs when government action deters conduct or speech that might have “genuine social utility’ to promote the rational exploration of political ideas. The chilling effect purpose is to serve the government surveillance of phone conversations that might “chill” free speech and open dialogue. The chilling effect need not to indicate the government prohibiting of communication, but merely actions that might deter it.

Take for instance the legal court motion filed by the American Civil Liberties against the NSA (National Security Agency) for violation of Americans first amendments and collection of all Americans phone calls.

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In a detailed, legal critique of the NSA programmer, the UCLA warned that such long-term surveillance “permits the government to assemble a richly detailed profile of every person living in the United States and to draw a comprehensive map of their associations with one another. The motion is part of a lawsuit filed by the UCLA in June, one of several against the NSA following the Guardian’s disclosures via whistler’s Edward Snowmen, of the agency’s mass surveillance of US citizens. Documents from Snowmen revealed a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order directing Verizon to give the NSA all call detail records or “metadata” relating to every domestic and international call for three months, in a court direction that is renewed on an ongoing basis. It “allows surveillance that is essentially indefinite”, the action says.

Government Surveillance Essay

The UCLA document is peppered with quotes from literary, academic and other sources, to illustrate the danger of mass surveillance by the government, including the writings of George Orwell and The Lives of Others, an award-winning movie about the monitoring of East Berlin by the Stasis by director Florien Hence von Demonstrates. In statements after the programmer was disclosed, intelligence and government officials have stressed that the NSA does not collect the contents of US calls, only the “metadata”, such as the numbers called, the duration and timing of the alls.

The information, they say, can only be interrogated if they suspect terrorism. The legal motion argues that the NSA programmer, which the agency says is used for counter-terrorism, has overstepped its bounds. Quoting Representative Jim Senselessness, Republican of Wisconsin, and the author of the Patriot Act in 2001 , it says the NSA has “scoop[deed] up the entire ocean to … Catch a fish. The motion says: “The chilling effect of the mass call-tracking program is apparent: any person hoping to approach plaintiffs with proof of official misconduct would be understandably ray knowing that the government receives, almost in real-time, a record of every telephone call. ” (McVeigh, 2013, Para. 3). This is similar to the Hawthorne Effect which is a psychological term referring to the result of sass research on Chicago factory workers showing that when workers knew they were being watched, their work output improved.

The Hawthorne effect is a term referring to the tendency of some people to work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment. Individuals may change their behavior due to the attention they are achieving from researchers rather than because of any manipulation of independent variables. The effect was first described in the sass by researcher Henry A. Landlubbers during his analysis of experiments conducted during the sass and sass at the Hawthorne works electric company.

The electric company had commissioned research to determine if there was a relationship between productivity and work environment. The focus of the original studies was to determine if increasing or decreasing the amount of light workers received would have an effect on worker productivity. (Cherry, 2013, Para. ). To surveillance in order to argue that government surveillance can change speakers’ communications. The chilling effect can further be defined as “the stifling effect that vague or overboard laws may have on legitimate speech and activity typically protected by the First Amendment. “(Hughes, 2012, p. 00). Ethical Theories More recently, “members of the NSA were collecting and storing telephone numbers of millions upon millions of Americans, as well as the times and duration of the calls. In addition, the government was also storing the subject lines of their emails, the mimes that they were sent, and the addresses of both senders and recipients” (Clansman, 2013, Para. 3). However, some people may argue that this is unfair or an invasion of privacy, but the sensitive information that was collected could have been for a legitimate reason since the Domestic Surveillance system keeps us safe.

For instance, Domestic Surveillance in the airport can pick up something as small as facial gestures from terrorists who would be considered the” utilitarian theory’ because it would be for the safety of other individuals within the airport and the airlines as well. Any major attacks at an airline could possibly mean losing millions or billions of dollars, including the trust of the American people. Utilitarian theory is the regulation for government and personal action based upon the minimization of the good by government for those within the society, and by individuals.

It is a system for public actions and of individual’s personal actions. The issue of what should be done about the behavior that produces significant harm for a society on a government level for it would be to select policies which would reduce the overall harm. To minimize these policies, a policy of retraining and supervision upon release will make the conditions of confinement only moderately revolting. Take for instance, the FBI used drones in domestic surveillance operations.

The FBI has admitted to for “the first time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation uses “very few” drones in a limited capacity for surveillance. “alt is very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident when you need the capability,” An agent said when asked about the bureau’s use of pillories aircraft with surveillance capabilities nice it is focused on particularize cases and particularize needs. Leaks by former intelligence to the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper unveiled surveillance programs that sweeps up telephone call data from millions of U. S. Tizzies as well as Internet traffic that the Obama administration says involves foreigners based outside the U. S. Suspected of plotting terrorist attacks. The revelations about the surveillance programs have reignited a political debate that has repeatedly flared since the Swept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U. S. About the balance teen civil liberties and protection from terrorism. Lawmakers and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the impact on privacy of drones used by federal law enforcement agencies” (Bloomberg, 2013). The next theory that pertains to Domestic Surveillance is Demonology. Deontological ethics is a theory of morality based on a “inconsequentially” view of people and moral decision-making. Demonology comes from the Greek word for “duty. ” Thus, deontological ethics maintains that actions are not Justified by their consequences. Rather, factors other than good outcomes determine the “rightness” of actions. Unlike utilitarianism, where “the ends Justify the means,” demonologies argues that it is the “means that are important (“Deontological Ethics,” 2014, Para. 1). “Surveillance involves paying close and sustained attention to another person.

It is distinct from casual yet focused people-watching, such as might occur at a pavement cafe, to the extent that it is sustained over time. Furthermore the design is not to pay attention to Just anyone, but to pay attention to some entity (a person or group) in particular and for a particular reason. Nor does surveillance have to involve watching. It may also involve listening, as when a telephone conversation is bugged, or even smelling, as in the case of dogs trained to discover drugs, or hardware which is able to discover explosives at a distance”(“Lenten Encyclopedia ,” 2013, Para. )On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, The Guardian reported that the NSA has collected in bulk the telephone records of millions of U. S. Customers of Verizon Wireless, pursuant to an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISH). Intelligence officials and leaders of the congressional intelligence committees have confirmed the existence of these mommies phone records collection program, although they have not identified the companies providing the records. It has been alleged but not confirmed that similar orders have been sent to other telecommunications providers.

The court order disclosed by The Guardian was a three-month extension of a program that has been going on for seven years. The director of national intelligence (DIN) has acknowledged the breadth of the program, analyzing it to “a huge library with literally millions of volumes of books,” but has stated that data about Americans in the possession of the U. S. Government can only be accessed under specific circumstances (Intelligence, 2013). The ethics of surveillance considers the moral aspects of how surveillance is employed.

Is it a value-neutral activity which may be used for good or ill, or is it always problematic and if so why? What are the benefits and harms of surveillance? Who is entitled to carry out surveillance, when and under what circumstances? Are there any circumstances under which someone should never be under surveillance? (“Internet Encyclopedia,” 2013, p. 3). Conclusion Domestic Surveillance is a system in place to protect the American people. As controversial as it may be, there are many opposing viewpoints to this topic.

Some may argue that it is an invasion of privacy; it is wrong and unfair treatment, while others may say why has such a policy in place if it is not working? Take for instance, the attacks of 9/1 1 which caused the American people to lose complete faith in the protection policies of the government. In addition, there are ethical theories in place, Utilitarian theory and Demonology theory to help put Domestic Surveillance in a more “positive” perspective. Although the advantages and the disadvantages are equally sighed the same, it is factual that the system protects each and every one of us as American citizens.

But despite the disagreements, most would even agree that on an individual level, privacy affords us the space to be ourselves and to define ourselves through giving us a degree of autonomy and protecting our dignity. In our interactions with others we may define the intimacy of our relationships with them through the amount of privacy we relinquish in that relationship. As we engage with society at large we gain confidence and security from our privacy, safe that those we do not know do not in turn know all about us.