No longer is there a question of whether or not the government is recording us. Thanks to NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the NSA’s program has become public knowledge as of June 5, 2013. However the question remains if it will reap positive benefits? Most people have little to worry about because the government is interested in only a narrow set of happenings. They aren’t interested in whether you have tons of homework tonight or if you just need your boyfriend to get you some Starbucks to survive the morning.
The US government is recording American’s phone calls in hopes of thwarting terrorism. While it seems that this is about as helpful as looking for a few needles in fifty haystacks, a recent study conducted by an independent research group discovered that in only one case a phone recording was helpful in identifying a terrorist in an investigation. However, according to law enforcement, this terrorist would have been identified without the use of the NSA program. “The report reaffirms the conclusion of many that the Senate 215 bulk phone records program has not been critical to our national security, is not worth the intrusion on Americans’ privacy, and should be shut down immediately,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the report.
So where is the line drawn between privacy and security? Of course a certain amount of privacy must be sacrificed for national safety. However, when these measures prove to be ineffective, expensive and invasive of constitutional privacy rights do we continue to sacrifice? While counterterrorism measures are noble, massive collection of phone records by the NSA have been nothing but controversial and so far unnecessary. President Barack Obama continues to defend the program and has been recommending minor changes that, overall, do little to fix the fundamental flaws in the NSA’s program. The most fundamental of those flaws being the unnecessary invasion of the Americans’ constitutional right to privacy.