Surveillance and Secrecy

Since at least 2001, the National Security Agency, with full approval of both the White House and Congress, has been engaged in massive and continuous surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications. From data about our phone calls, to records of literally everything we do online, the American government has been waging a war of surveillance on its own citizens.

A few years ago, most people would have said that this sounded like a crackpot conspiracy theory, but after the leaks of classified documents by ex-CIA and ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden in June of 2013, the government was no longer able to deny the fact that it has spent literally billions of dollars for the sole purpose of spying on Americans.

More recently, it has been revealed that the US government has been using similar methods to spy on hundreds of millions of people in other parts of the world, including indiscriminate collection of data belonging to citizens of countries we are friendly with, infuriating our allies and leaving the United States increasingly alienated and vulnerable on the world stage.

Of course, a certain level of security is necessary to protect American lives and interests, both at home and abroad. Of course we need to empower our intelligence agencies to investigate terrorists and other threats so they can keep working to keep us all safe. However, as Americans, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees us protection from unreasonable search and seizures. The recently exposed surveillance by the NSA is in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment, and it is for this reason and this reason only that the extent of their surveillance was kept secret from the citizens of the United States. We need to begin a national dialogue that will help us find a security solution that does not violate our fundamental civil rights.