“We are not fighting so that the enemy may offer us something. We are fighting to wipe out the enemy” (Hussein Mussawi)
The NSA bulk surveillance program is oriented on detecting and preventing possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad. Although, methods required for the program arose lots of complaints about privacy and legality. Bulk phone calls and email records are being collected and analyzed by a special agency in order to detect any threats to the national security. However, these methods require to collect data to special storage, which means one’s private conversation could be listened and recorded, hence lots of personal information will be revealed to third parties without a person’s permission.
The Surveillance program is strongly protected by the President, Barack Obama, who stated during one of his visits to Berlin that over 50 terrorist attacks were stopped because of the information received within the bulk telephone and email communications records. (Bergen, Sterman, Schneider, and Cahall, 2014, p. 1) Furthermore, section 215 of the Patriot Act (Access to records and other items under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) officially allows the director of FBI to sign an order for making records of the private information, which may help in the investigation of possible terrorist danger., which basically makes the Surveillance Program legal. Nevertheless, many people still consider the program to be exaggerated. For example, cases of 225 al-Qaeda followers, imprisoned after 9/11 with a help of standard investigating methods show that the Surveillance’s impact is overestimated. (Bergen, Sterman, Schneider, and Cahall, 2014, p.1)
Regardless any statistics presented, common people are more interested in protecting their interests and safety. Therefore, most people are still confused and have no certain opinion about the Surveillance program. Some people support it, as the program can give them stronger feeling of safety and assure that the government does its best to fight against terrorism. Such people are ready to sacrifice their privacy, and if needed, they even accept that their medical records could be checked. However, there are still many Americans, who do not accept the fact that Federal Agencies may listen to their private call or read their mail, even if there is nothing illegal. Such people simply do not feel comfortable understanding that the government is constantly monitoring them. Approving or not, none can be sure that the Surveillance program can be 100% effective. In case a program is fully implemented and approved by the society, but an attack eventually occurs, one may claim that the Surveillance is ineffective. Meanwhile, if the Surveillance is not implemented and an attack happens, people would blame the government for lack of actions. (Does Surveillance Prevent Terrorist Attacks)
Summarizing the above mentioned information it is worth to say that the NSA Surveillance program shows positive effects, even of a small scale. Since it was only recently implemented, compared to other investigating methods its efficiency cannot be measured in the same way. Despite numerous attacks that happened in the modern world, people are mostly reluctant to accept these threats as a part of their daily life. Thus, accepting a possibility of being monitored by the government appears to be scarier. Nevertheless, one should recognize that terrorism is a real danger and has to be stopped as soon as possible. Hence, some privacy inconvenience must be accepted as a compromise. Moreover, considering the amount of information tracked under the Surveillance program, routine information is not interested neither makes any value for the agencies involved in the recording process. Thus, the program should be developed further for the common safety.
References
Does Surveillance Prevent Terrorist Attacks. (n.d.) Video. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2eyKAr8juQ
Bergen, P., Sterman, D., Schneider, E., and Cahall, B. (Jan, 2014) Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists? New America Foundation. Available at: https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/IS_NSA_surveillance.pdf
