Nathan Underwood
English III
Argumentative Essay
Why The NSA Is Taking Things Too Far When i pick up my phone and call my Mom, is it just me and her.. Or is someone listening, surveying. This is a thought no one should ever have to have, especially in America where the Fourth Amendment protects us from the government tracking your personal information unless they have good reason to believe a crime is happening. Government surveillance invades Civil Liberties and fails to protect the citizens that it should be protecting. In 2001 Congress passed the Patriot Act which granted more authority to grant secret requests on a larger scale. Instead of getting a warrant to collect all of a persons metadata (phone numbers of the parties, date and time, length of call, etc.), the Government can now search large amounts of people even those not under suspicion. Fisa (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts are not required to disclose what court order has…show more content… And it cannot be stopped.” Says Edward Snowden, NSA whistle blower that stole 1700 NSA documents and is strategically sending them to hand picked reporters and using his First Amendment right as an american. Snowden is fighting for the freedom of the worlds privacy and rights.Our generation has to defend the rights that we are entitled to. When you buy a book off of amazon or buy anything online you should not have to worry about what a government agent thinks when he sees that. "NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year."(Jim Hightower) In an internal audit in May 2012 of its DC-area spy centers, the agency itself found 2,776 "incidences" of NSA overstepping its legal authority.(Jim Hightower) The three billion phone calls made in the U.S. each day are snatched up by the agency, which stores each call's metadata (phone numbers of the parties, date and time, length of call, etc.) for five