According to Wikipedia, the National Security Agency is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence.[1] They have been a subject of controversy since the 1970s, when it was revealed that they had been wiretapping Americans’ telephones. Their surveillance has only grown since then, despite the fact that a majority of Americans disagree with it. [2] The NSA’s domestic surveillance is ineffective, unconstitutional, and a violation of privacy that needs to be stopped.
To begin, the NSA’s surveillance is unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches…show more content… When it comes to stopping major terror attacks, the NSA has hardly made a dent. Since the 1970’s, they have foiled only one attack [4] out of 170,000 in the world and 2600 in the U.S.[5] NSA defenders say that the NSA must be effective, because the U.S. hasn’t had any major attacks from members of ISIS. This is seems like a valid claim, but is not one. This is a logical fallacy; there appears to be a correlation, but there is not.
In addition to the statements made previously, it can be further argued that the National Security Agency is a violation of America’s right to privacy. The NSA forced Verizon to hand them metadata on its customers’ private phone calls in bulk.[6] And through a program called XKeyscore, the NSA can collect data on virtually everything you do on the internet.[7] If an individual citizen collected data on every single one of a citizen’s phone calls and all of their internet activity without consent, a warrant, or probable cause, that would be seen as a violation of privacy. Therefore, the NSA’s actions should be seen as a violation of privacy, too. Some people will claim that it does not matter whether or not they violate Americans’ privacy, because if one has nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. This argument is void, because in the U.S. justice system, a suspect is innocent until proven guilty. “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” implies that no one should be allowed privacy because they are all
