Carah Goldoust Blog Post #5

I chose to address the article by Julian Sanchez, The Fourth Amendment Shell Game. Sanchez is very critical of the NSA surveillance program and provides valid information to support his argument. While the NSA surveillance program can very well be argued to be an infringement on our Fourth Amendment rights as US citizens, but it is does have a purpose. Sanchez argues that a program such as this sets a dangerous precedent because ultimately the government does not need a judicial warrant in order to look at citizens’ records. I was not aware of the specifics of the president’s new proposal until I read this article. Before, with permission presented by the Patriot Act, the government would get records from phone companies of information they already kept for themselves (for business purposes). However, now, the phone companies are being asked to keep information according to what the government needs. The idea is that with this third party – being the phone company – is going to be made aware of your activities and therefore by allowing them to have this information you are waiving your right to the privacy of this information. While it may it intruding on our Fourth Amendment rights, I believe that the program should remain.

A program like this again is used to track down illegal activities and potential threats to our homeland. This program is not in place for our everyday conversations to be listened in on. Essentially, if an everyday citizen is not doing anything wrong there should be no intense worry about the government conducting surveillance. In today’s age it is impossible to believe that things will move forward without each move being monitored in one way or another. With changing times, tactics also have to change, so a program like this is only keeping up with modern times.

Smith v. Maryland supports the activities carried out by the NSA because it reasoned that you are knowingly exposing any phone number that you dial to your phone company, and therefore you are waiving your right to “reasonable expectation of privacy.” The NSA is legally able to obtain this information, but at the same time it is completely valid to argue that it infringes on our Fourth Amendment right. However, with changing times we cannot expect to keep all of our privacy if we expect terrorists to be stopped. I believe that as time goes on and technology advances, we should not expect more privacy but rather less. While it doesn’t mean that a citizen is unfavorable of the bulk surveillance because they are conducting illegal activities, it is important to remember that the government is not working to monitor everyday conversations of everyday citizens. While again it is just the principle that one of our Constitutional rights is being infringed upon, this is a helpful tool for our government to weed out our country’s enemies.