Should The NSA Be Able To 'Tap Into Innocent Citizens' Information

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Should The NSA Be Able to Tap Into Innocent Citizens’ Information?

Since congress passed new privacy laws for the NSA in 2008, the NSA has overstepped its legal policies and rules by spying on citizens, and ingesting private information into their databases, which is not necessary for an agency that is meant to be cracking down on terrorism, and other criminal activity that may be current. The NSA should not have access to an innocent individual’s confidential information without a probable cause or suspicion of terrorism or other malicious activity. First of all, the NSA can access any american’s data, no matter if they’re a suspect or not. In 2011, the NSA had unbelievable amounts of naive citizen’s information, and a court ruling revealed
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As stated in the quote in the text above, illegal methods were used to collect Millions of innocent American’s data. According to a Washington Post article, the NSA uses cellphone towers to collect data, find your location, and much more. The NSA claims their ways of tracking are lawful, and say that they don’t intend to collect everyone’s data. Courts say this method of collecting data is in fact illegal, and the NSA should not collect information via the cell phone tower method. In 2002, President Bush signed a bill allowing the NSA to be able to completely monitor citizens without a warrant, (ACLU). Since then, many have considered the NSA illegal because we are spied on every day. One piece of evidence to support that the NSA is committing illegal acts, is the fourth amendment. The amendment states, “The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” …show more content…
Over the course of 2017, they had collected about “534 million phone calls”, according to Charlie Savage from NY Times Magazine. The data exposed who was talking to who, but not the contents of the conversation. Is this really necessary? Although it’s not as bad they didn’t record conversations, there’s still really no reason they should be taking all of that data. In an interview, it was revealed that the NSA still has not tried to reconsider their actions, “But in an interview, Alex Joel, the office’s chief civil liberties officer, said the NSA had not reinterpreted its legal authorities to change the way it collects such data,” (Savage, NY