Surveillance In The Privacy Of Your Homes example essay topic

To what extent should the government be able to monitor the public? How much leeway should we give the government to watch the citizens for the purpose of national security? There is a fine line between monitoring the public for the safety of the nation as a whole, and the invasion of privacy. The government must not be able to violate U. S, citizen's rights by invading their privacy.

In the Constitution it says that we need to, "Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and out posterity". The key word to notice is liberty. You also can look at the IV Amendment that says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue". We have the freedom of religion, press, speech, and privacy because of our Constitution and its Amendments. When the government starts to monitor for security reasons you have to make sure that to an extent it doesn't take away these liberties that we have as citizens. There are times where it is alright for the government to monitor what we do, what we say, and where we go.

"Electronic monitors are new elementary devices designed to verify that an offender is at a specific location during specific times" (p 137) Such places as the workplace, shopping marts, convenience stores, the library, school, and many other public places I believe it is alright for the government or the owner of the establishment to monitor what is going on. It is a good idea to have surveillance in these places. I think it makes society better to have this, because if people know they are being watched they will act differently. It will prevent people from doing things they shouldn't. People generally will hesitate to commit a crime when they know they are being watched. On a lot of reality shows on TV you can see where this happens.

Where the people who commit the crimes are caught twenty minutes after they committed the crime and then they are convicted because it was all caught on tape. I am not saying that because the government and workplaces have surveillance that no crimes will be committed. My friend Jarrett's family owns a convenience store in Annapolis, Maryland and he was telling me about this new surveillance system that his dad put up in the store recently because there had been a lot of robberies in the surrounding towns. He also said that you can see the cameras and there are signs around the store saying this store is under 24 hour surveillance. One week after they had the new surveillance installed the store was robbed by two armed men. Luck fully, no one was hurt, and the men were caught the next day and convicted.

This goes to show you that there is still crime committed even though there is surveillance, but the point I am trying to make is that there will be less crime if surveillance is allowed in public. People will think twice before they commit a crime, if they know someone is watching. Because of recent events like September 11th and The War in Iraq the U.S. government has wanted to keep closer tabs on everyone. For security reasons they want to know what you are talking about and what you are writing to other people. They want to tap phones and see all your emails you write. So the government came up with the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act "broadly expands law enforcement's surveillance and investigative powers". It was like a big brother type of power that the government wanted to have over U.S. citizens. They wanted the Patriot Act to help put a stop to terrorism. This act "Provides that any citizen, even native born, who supports even the lawful activities of an organization the executive branch deems 'terrorism' is presumptively stripped of his or her citizenship and ordered deported".

The congress members who were for the Patriot Act, "Argued that it should be afforded broader surveillance powers over "international terrorism" because such acts are simultaneously a matter of domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence". I can understand where they are coming from because of the events of 9/11 that just took place, but you can't give up the liberties and freedoms that you have that are in the U.S. Constitution. There is a line that should be drawn between public and private surveillance. Now just like there are places that the government can monitor us there are places that I don't think the government should monitor us.

In the public place they should be able to monitor us to an extent. They should not put video cameras in bathroom stalls and dressing rooms. There is no need for this. I can remember going to a store in New York City and I needed to use the bathroom. I went to the men's bathroom, but when I went in I noticed a camera up in the corner of the bathroom where it could see everything, even over the stalls.

I felt very uncomfortable and left the bathroom and the store. This is not going to help stores for security reason to be able to watch a young lady or old man change in the dressing room or use the bathroom. This is invasion of privacy. We should be able to change our clothes or go to the bathroom with out having a video camera staring at us the whole time.

We should be able to have privacy when we are using the bathroom. Crimes are still committed in bathrooms like for example in Las Vegas when someone was murdered in a bathroom. You can put cameras in the bathroom as a whole as long as it has individual stalls and the cameras can not see in them. The government can monitor us but only to an extent and as long as it is not invading our privacy and taking away our freedoms. I want my privacy when I am going to the bathroom and I want the freedom to change in the dressing room knowing someone is not watching me. The privacy of my home is very important to me.

What I do in my own home on my own time is my business and not the governments. When the government tries to come into my personal life and interfere with my home that is going to far. But after 9/11 a lot of people in the government say that the terrorist might be living right next door to you, they might be making bombs in their garage. I live 20 min away from New York City.

I was there. I was in the middle of the whole terrorist atrocity. Of course I was afraid of what had just happened but that doesn't mean I need the government in my house watching me. The best thing to do after 9/11 was to go on with your every day lives. You can't let the terrorist get to you. What they wanted is chaos and confusion.

You just had to go about your every day life and act normal. How can we know if we don't have surveillance in the privacy of your homes because of 9/11? Ron Paul put it well when he said, "Monitoring the transactions of every American in order to catch those few who are involved in some sort of illegal activity turns one of the great bulwarks of our liberty, the presumption of innocence, on its head". Ron Paul was the speaker who brought forth the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act which was made to stop "the greatest threat to liberty today: the growth of the surveillance state". Congress was saying that they needed "to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently". Ron Paul's response to this was "I would remind my colleagues that in a constitutional republic the people are never asked to sacrifice there liberties to make the job of government officials a little bit easier.

We are here to protect the freedom of the American people, not to make privacy invasion more efficient". They are stepping over the line when it comes to home surveillance, phone calls, and personal email. This is an invasion of my privacy and my freedom as an American Citizen. I want to be able to walk around in my own house with out a secret video camera watching every move I make. I already have them in my workplace and other public places I attend. I don't want to be watched 24/7.

I want to be able to talk on the phone and not have my conversation listened to my government. I want to be able to right my personal emails and not have them read over by the government. I want to be able to exercise my freedom of speech, religion, press, and privacy without the government crawling up my back. Now the government argues that they need to tap phone calls and read email for national security. The government has these new high tech surveillance operations called Carnivore and Echelon. "Carnivore is the email and web surfing surveillance used by government agencies to track bad guys.

Echelon is the supposed worldwide surveillance satellite system that monitors calls, listening for key words and phrases such as 'bomb,' 'kill the president,' 'nerve gas' and so forth". Phone tapping is very easy to do. With the technology today your home phones and cell phones can easily be tapped. The FBI tried to get a law passed where they can intercept your cell phone signal and survey everything that you are doing.

The never got the law passed but who is going to say today that they are not doing it anyway? The government can intercept you signal and they can copy your conversations on hard drives. They say they do this to make sure you aren't a terrorist or a spy or going to blow up a building. They have a point but you can't take away our privacy by listening and copying our private phone conversations. You can't take what our forefathers before us gave to us.

You can have you security to an extent, but when it comes to the privacy if my home I don't want the government watching me. We as American citizens should give up some of our freedoms to an extent. Ed Lewis said, "Being a free person in a Republic, protected by a Constitution providing guidelines thousands have fought for and defended with their lives, my idea of the right of privacy is no one has any right to know anything about me-excepting what I choose for them to know". I disagree with him here and think he is a little bit on the extreme side. We need to let the government know who we are.

If it is for the security of the nation as a whole then I will give up some of my freedoms. I won't mind if there is 24/7 surveillance at my workplace or at the supermarket I shop at. For national security we should let the government monitor what we do in public. It is for our own safety. But they should not be allowed to come into our homes and listen to our phone conversations and read our personal emails.