Question by alphabetsoup: Should the NSA eavesdrop on Americans e-mails and phone calls without going to court to receive a warrant?
They are using private corporate data, too, on you and me, and using data mining tools to determine whom among us might be a terrorist threat. It isn’t legal, but, should it be allowed?
I am merely posing the question, not, giving an opinion, and, this IS occuring to all americans, not just suspected terrorists, as, the idea is prevention, and, this methodology is designed to find the terrorists amongst us.
Best answer:
Answer by cvq3842
Yes. The program only involves surveillance of those communicating with suspected terrorists, and is perfectly constitutional. FDR did it in WWII. Your question contains several false premises.
What do you think? Answer below!
Absolutely not. Under no circumstance. Ever.
I have nothing to hide do you
Doesn’t bother me. But then again, I’m not doing anything illegal.
They shouldn’t… but they do. It’s the American way. Yell from the rooftops about how free this country is, while behind the scenes, you’re reading e-mails and listening to phone calls.
Sure. Its an entirely new and modern world we live in where the only way to catch a mass murderer (terrorist) is to track their communications as quickly as possible.
If that email or phone call goes international to a terrorist group than Yes.
Inside the US No and they don’t.
I wish they would drop in and pay my bills. That’s been going on for decades. Nothing new here. Move along.
Absolutely!! Tell them to take my freedom of speech and all my other constitutional rights away too. Anybody who says this is okay is way too trusting of what has been the most corrupt administration in history.
Why can’t the NSA just expedite the warrants?
Gotta love those “I’ve got nothing to hide do you?” people. Just a variation of that Nazi standard “if you nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear” and we all know how well that worked out in the hands of the gestapo.
I just send all my emails, and mail to the White House when I’m finished with it… (and I even try to make 3-party calls to the White House when I am talking to anyone on the phone… but no one picks up). THATS what ALL patriotic Americans should do!!!!!
I’m waiting for my Medal of Freedom!!!
yeah
It is illegal and it should not be allowed. There was an excellent program on PBS the other night about this. Our country is data mining millions and millions of bits of information hourly. Those that say that they have nothing to hide, don’t understand. First, it is a violation of the 4th amendment and secondly, those data mining operations are being run by computer programs. Do you trust all computer programs???
Yahoo screws with my email more than any Government agency could. It is easier for a police department to get a search warrant for your home from an anonymous tip than it is for the F.B.I to invoke the Patriot Act. Maybe the terrorist could just send us a nice little note before they attack us.
No, it should not be allowed. How many times have people misunderstood what is written and what is said in a conversation? You maybe speaking to a “terror” suspect and not even know it and it may be a purely innocent conversation, but then you are perceived as a threat and there goes your life. I hate using labels , but for lack of a better term “conservatives” think it is fine until it happens to them. A warrant and good evidence should be required.
Ash: Just like Iraq was “known” to have WMD.
DO you honestly believe that they are watching every single email and listening to every phone call? I was contacted by someone from Nigeria through email several times and had responded back, I received a letter from yahoo saying that the correspondence was received from a person suspected of terrorist affiliations and would be monitored. I was grateful for the heads up! This person wanted to VISIT me in the united states for a month. Granted I would not invite a stranger into my home with my family but how many people might fall for that? Not to mention it IS possible to be singled out, traced through the Internet and located. if this person was a terrorist and found my location to be advantageous to something planned against my country then I have NO problem with the government having information that may have SAVED my family…I emailed the person from Nigeria and told him that our correspondence was being monitored and I was OK with that. Oddly enough I never heard from him again. they only monitor RED FLAGS..Not the emails and phone calls that you get from your mother in law and next door neighbor.
It’s my opinion NSA should able to use any means of monitoring to catch terrorists BEFORE they can act. If that involves ‘mineing’ programs to scan for words and phrases I have absolutly no problem with that.
If those words show up there should be approval required for specific survailance which could be admitted in a court of law. Now whether or not a warrant would be required would be a matter of legal technicalities.
This country took a big hit especially in economic terms on 9/11. If monitoring cell calls, E-mails, or web sites would have led to preventing that from happening I would be all for it.
Right now there are probably somewhere in the US a group of people who would do this country harm. How do you even know where to start looking for them? I wonder if the headquarters of the ACLU was bombed and the people responsible were caught and computer records showed the perps were using web sites to recruit, and E-mails and cell calls to communicate and plan what would their stand be?
Monitoring would be illeagal in Utopia. But then Utopia has no terrorists. Utopia doesn’t need laws to protect it’s citizens because everyone there considers the needs of others before their own need and wants. NOTE: The last time I looked Utopia was still a fictional place and definitly not on this planet.