There
Watching
The United States
Federal Government has been collecting a plethora of information about their
citizens. They can track where we eat to what we spend our money on. Getting
this information would be illegal if the Federal Government conducted these
investigations. This is because the fourth amendment of the United States
Constitution protects all U.S citizens from the Federal Government
eavesdropping or electronic surveillance, however, there lie a loophole. The U.S Feds can purchase or obtain
information about their citizens through third party companies. Facebook,
Google, and Microsoft are a few examples of companies that sell information
about their customers to the United States Government.
After the horrific acts that took place
on 9/11, the citizens of the U.S were scared. During this time frame, the
United States Government passed the “USA Patriot Act.” This bill gave the FBI
the ability to send National Security Letters. These letters are sent out to
companies inside the United States and request intelligence, such as personal
information about their customers. This is the loophole that the federal
government uses to obtain a huge amount of data on the citizens of the United
States.
The United States government does not have the
right to spy on their citizens, and should not have the right to purchase this
information from a third party company. The idea of buying information is
almost as worse than the United States conducting their own surveillance. This
encourages major corporations to compete to collect the most information.
Corporations will do anything that will earn them money, or anything that will
help their relationship with the United States Government. The United States
loves to buy the information and the corporations love to sell it. The group
that is losing out is the consumers. Programs like Siri and Cortana are prime
examples of programs that will take your personal information and store it to a
database.
The United States
Government is using the “USA Patriot Act” to violate our fourth amendment
rights. The future is scary in this subject, with private companies being able
to film anyone in public; it could lead to constant surveillance in public
areas. This would be a world where
everything you do or say will and can be tracked. The only way to prevent this
future of happening is to vote for candidates that are against public
surveillance.
Sources:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/do-you-want-the-government-buying-your-data-from-corporations/275431/
http://www.alternet.org/story/155628/america%27s_spy_state%3A_how_the_telecoms_sell_out_your_privacy
https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters