English Paper Wiretapping

Wiretapping

By: Ayanna D. Pass

Mrs. Gamble
English 131.22

Ayanna D. Pass
Mrs. Gamble
English 131.22
April 23, 2014

Wire Tapping
Thesis: Wiretapping enables both parties and government agencies to monitor the communications of targeted people to determine if they are doing something wrong. The Government should not have the luxury of imposing on the privacy of Americans without a reasonable doubt as to when they should get a warrant to be able to do so. The Government should not wiretap because it is an abuse of power, distrust, and ethical dilemma, the violation of the Fourth Amendment which involves the collecting and storing information about people who are not criminals to be penalized.
I. The government admits that well over 300,000 people have had their phone calls intercepted by state and federal wiretaps in the last year alone.
A. Wiretapping is the most abused power of Government.
B. In some cases the government cannot be trusted by its citizens because important information might have been omitted.
C. Wiretapping is unethical because it violates the right of freedom to innocent citizens.
D. There are some cases where the government has been found violating the fourth amendment in wiretapping.
E. More than 50,000 government requests for internet information are received each year as reported by internet providers.
II. The government abuses their power of wiretapping.
A. Surveillance laws protect people’s rights from invasions of privacy by the government.
B. Acts were in place to restrict law enforcement from obtaining information.
III. The government cannot be trusted in some situations.
A. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment dented America’s trust in the government.
B. The government denied the existence of Area 51
C. Katz vs. Government case is a direct example of distrust.
IV. Wiretapping is an unethical dilemma because it is being used for a good purpose with a negative effect on innocent people.
A. Government wiretapping effects private and public rights
B. Citizens do not trust their government because of violations like wiretapping.
C. Wiretapping is a moral issue because of the violation of privacy.
V. The Fourth Amendment states the right for people privacy and freedom.
A. The Fourth Amendment is a direct result of the American Revolution.
B. Olmstead v. United States is a case dealing with the violation of the Fourth Amendment by the government.
C. Information obtained through the violation of the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible in court.

VI. Wiretapping gives the government more room to stereotype and profile innocent people.
A. Information gathered through wiretapping may be used to prosecute or incriminate individuals.
B. Brandon Mayfield was falsely accused of terrorism by the FBI through wiretapping.
C. The government intrudes into people’s information before they have been proven guilty.
VII. The government has no business wiretapping people without permission, but yet they have the power to do just that. The Patriot Act gives powers to the FBI, CIA and other government investigative agencies that violate the rights of Americans guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment.

The government admits that well over 300,000 people have had their phone calls intercepted by state and federal wiretaps in the last year alone. Wiretapping is the most abused power of Government. In some cases the government cannot be trusted in certain situations. Wiretapping is ethnical because it violates the right of freedom to innocent citizens. There are some cases where the government has been found in violation of the fourth amendment in wiretapping. More than 50,000 government requests for internet information are received each year as reported by internet providers. Wiretapping enables both parties and government agencies to monitor the communications of targeted people to determine if they are doing something wrong. The government should not be able to wiretap without a warrant. They should not have the luxury of imposing on the privacy of Americans without a reasonable doubt as to when they should get a warrant to be able to do so. The Government should not wiretap because of the abuse of power, distrust, ethical Dilemma, the violation of the Fourth Amendment and it may involve collecting and storing information about people who are not criminals to be penalized.
Privacy is a human right. Webster defines privacy as “freedom from unauthorized intrusion”. Privacy supports human dignity and other values such as freedom of suggestion and freedom of speech. If the government has the right to eavesdrop, they will have the rights to go over a person emails, text messages and other personal data. Surveillance laws protect people rights from invasions of privacy by the government. These laws include the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968(The Wiretap Act), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The Wiretap Act of 1968 “prohibits any person from intentionally intercepting, or attempting to intercept, and wire or oral communication” (Cooper). The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 “is a law developed after the discovery of large-scale abuses by various United States government agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Act was created to provide checks and balances on foreign intelligence, foreign powers, and foreign agents” (Cooper). The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 “requires that digitally switched telephone networks be designed and built with wiretap capabilities and that service providers assist law enforcement agencies in obtaining surveillance." (Guhl and Pendse). Acts were out in place to restrict law enforcement from obtaining information.
The government cannot be trusted in some situations. There are many well-known situations but the most two well-known are The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and the existence of Area 51. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment dented America’s trust in the government. The Tuskegee Experiment was a study of untreated syphilis on black men. The government was trying to find a cure for this disease, so they gave African Americans the disease to find a cure. Eventually they found a cure but didn’t treat the patients with the cure. After a law was passed to stop the experiment the government continued anyway until it was put in the paper in 1972. The men of Tuskegee as well as the general public were lied to by the main power that should be trusted.
Area 51 is also a controversial issue because of the retracted statements that where put out concerning UFOs and experiments with weapons and the governments denial of the existence of the base. During the 1950s and 1960s rumors of UFO sighting and alien testing by the government on the base have been circulating. After the crash at Roswell many witnesses reported seeing flying saucers and strange beings. The government issued a statement about the existence of UFOs that was later retracted. Recently, under the Obama Administration information on Area 51 was a base was released. There was, however, no mention of the strange and denied cases of the past. Katz v. United States is another example because the government illegally listened in on a conversation between Charles Katz and another party placing gambling bets. Although obtained illegally the evidence was used in case. The case was later thrown out because the way the information was obtained violated the Fourth Amendment which protects against search and seizure.
Wiretapping is an ethical dilemma because although it is being used for a good purpose with negative effect on innocent people. The dilemma is those citizens’ rights to privacy and unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment of our government is in jeopardy. The governmental wiretapping affects private and public rights. The ethical dilemma lies in not just the legality of wiretapping, but in the question of whether our private and public freedoms are being run over by an obsessive government. Developments in technology also have a intense impact on privacy. If government wiretapping is allowed then the government will push the boundaries and try to get as much power as possible. Taking control over every aspect of our lives and implementing total rule, while doing away with the United States Constitution and the America citizens know today.
Citizens do not trust their government because of violations like wiretapping. There’s no secrecy clause that states the people’s rights are void if the government can violate them without getting caught. Out of this fear comes the dilemma of how to keep American citizens safe, which means not having the government over step their boundaries of individual privacy as granted by the United States Constitution. Wiretapping was such a violation of privacy for citizens that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the government that applied the program in September 2009 in an effort to get the government to stop using wiretapping.
Wiretapping is a moral issue because of the violation of privacy. Wiretapping is sweeping and some authorities believe that the number of telephones being monitored on any given day runs into the hundreds of thousands. The meaning of privacy has changed throughout the years but has come to be understood as freedom from having one’s personal life and information interfered with. This abuse of government power obviously cannot be permitted and must be stopped while Americans still have rights. The government is too big and should be controlled and limited in what they can do. This is realized by due process of rights and prevents misuse and abuse of governmental powers.
“The Fourth Amendment prohibits generalized searches, unless extraordinary circumstances place the general public in danger"(Fourth Amendment: An Overview) this right was added to the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791 in response to the “writs of assistance”. These searches where ordered by King George in an effort to stop colonist from smuggling in goods that may have otherwise been unreasonably taxed. At the time British agents could occupy or search anyone’s home at any time and interrogate them. During the American Revolution the Founding Fathers saw this as an issue and put it into the constitutions; it was many years later that wiretapping arose and the issue of its violation of the Bill of Rights brought into light.
Olmstead V. United States is the first known instance of wiretapping by the government. Roy Olmstead was said to be involved in bootlegging, the FBI agents wiretapped his phone as well as the phones of other to obtain information to indict them, and however, Roy argued that this was violation of their rights. Although the information had not been gathered physically, his private conversation had been recorded therefore incriminating him. After this case, as well as others; the Supreme Court ruled that information obtained through the violation of the Fourth Amendment was inadmissible in court.
Wiretapping gives the government more room to stereotype and profile innocent people. The government record people without considering whose rights they may be violating. A person can have a conversation without the other person being aware is a violation of the law. Some of the recordings the government record can be misinterpreted because of the conversation are being taken out of context.
Information gathered through wiretapping may be used to prosecute or incriminate individuals. A total of 3,395 wiretaps were authorized in 2012. Only 18.19% of these wiretaps led to a conviction. The wiretapping report justifies this by saying, “Arrests, trials, and convictions resulting from these interceptions often do not occur within the same year in which the intercepts were first reported.” Out of 3,395 wiretaps, 612 people were convicted. 2,783 people were listened to and watched with no familiar.
Brandon Mayfield was falsely accused of terrorism by the FBI through wiretapping. After a bombing in 2004, the FBI mistakenly connected fingerprints found at the scene to Mayfield. That Mayfield was an attorney for a terrorism offender in a child custody case. The government expected him as a target because Mayfield was a Muslim. The government used their power under the USA Patriot Act, the government wiretapped his conversations, conducted secret searches of his home and his law office. Mayfield was put in jail for two weeks as a material witness in the case before a judge threw out the case against him. Mr. Mayfield continued a lawsuit in search of difficulty parts of the Patriot Act as a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The government intrudes into people’s information before they have been proven guilty. Governments collect information aggressively, and they have enormous databases that are sometimes very wrongly used, in terms of both privacy and civil liberties. The average number of incrimination conversations diverted at 200,000 and 400,000 per year.
The government has no business wiretapping people without permission, but yet they have the power to do just that. The Patriot Act gives powers to the FBI, CIA and other government investigative agencies that violate the rights of Americans guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment. Wiretapping is an unconstitutional act by the government that is an invasion of human rights and privacy. It is another controversial issue dealing with the flaws of the government and its inability to be trusted by its citizens in certain situations.