Unreasonable Search? ~ The NSA and the Fourth Amendment

Send an email; make a phone call; perform a Google search; comment on a post on Facebook or another social networking site.  These are all things that most of us do on a regular basis; and the chances are good that you and I, and the average American, aren’t exchanging secrets that would endanger the nation.  Why then does our government feel it is necessary to record every phone or internet interaction of each United States citizen, both within and without our borders?  The fourth amendment to the Constitution states, “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, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”  Translated into more common terms, it says, “Unless there is a viable reason to believe that an individual has done something wrong, the government has no license to wriggle its fingers into private property or interactions.  It should mind its own business unless it has something specific that’s worth investigating.”  To the frustration and terror of many Americans, our government, under the guise of 'protecting national security,' now operates with bold disregard for the Fourth Amendment.

The National Security Agency, or the NSA, was created by the Truman Administration during the Korean War to protect national security by monitoring foreign communications.  The domestic branch of the NSA was established by the George W. Bush Administration after the 2001 terrorist attacks.  President Bush licensed the NSA to conduct surveillance inside the United States, monitoring the communications of as many as one thousand people suspected to have connections with Al Qaeda.  Since then, however, the program has grown and begun targeting millions of Americans never suspected of a crime.

Shortly after the 2001 attacks, NSA representatives approached the nation’s leading telecommunications companies with a persuasive message: our national security is at risk, and we need you to help prevent attacks on our country.  The NSA convinced them to turn over their ‘call-detail’ records, a complete listing of the call histories of their millions of customers, and provide updates so the NSA could monitor the nation’s calling habits.  While its actions do not include actual sound recordings of calls, the NSA now possesses a complete record of who we are calling—long distance and local calls—and how often.

NSA surveillance doesn’t stop at phone communications, however: their eyes are on our internet activity as well.  Every time we send an email or carry out another internet-based communication, we are transmitting data across telecommunications companies’ wires and fiber optics networks.  The NSA has installed interception devices called ‘fiber optics splitters’ at many of the telecommunication network junctions in the United States.  These devices make copies of the data passing through them, sending one to our intended recipient, and the other to the NSA. 

The original purpose of the NSA’s phone and internet surveillance was to scan messages and communications for suspicious key words, phrases, patterns, or connections.  I personally have nothing to hide – like I said, I don’t possess any classified information or have any interactions that would imperil the country – but the right to be secure from unlawful searches is guaranteed to all Americans by the the fourth amendment.  The information we are exchanging isn’t dangerous to America as a whole, but it is confidential; our interactions with family members and friends are for their eyes and ears, not the government’s.  Recall the Fourth Amendment’s “probable cause” justification: at what point does our private communication become the government’s business?  Naturally, if there is a reasonable suspicion that an individual is in league with a terrorist organization or plotting to overthrow the government, that would warrant governmental intervention; but the tens of millions of innocent Americans being spied on by the NSA are not a threat.  In light of the Fourth Amendment’s provision that no private individual should be analyzed without justification and particularly specified bounds, we can conclude that the NSA—and therefore the federal government—are reaching too far into the lives of private citizens.  We need to put the government back in the box created by the Constitution and make the NSA play by the rules, because we must not sacrifice too much privacy and liberty in the name of safety.

Works Cited

"How the NSA's Domestic Spying Program Works" Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14  Oct. 2013. <https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works>.

"NSA Has Massive Database of Americans' Phone Calls." USATODAY.com. N.p., 11 May 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm>.