The Issue Of Ethics With US Government Surveillance

Whether you realize it or not, the United States government has been monitoring its citizens for a multitude of years with new surveillance technology. These technologies include video recordings, audio recordings, databases, and many other technologies. The government has been invading people’s privacy with new technology without permission from the people. As time passes by, technology has been advancing and the rate of these advancements has also has been increasing. The technology alone is neither bad nor good, but it is the use of the technology that can be considered bad or good. A majority of recent technological advantages are seemingly used for destructive purposes. Many ethical dilemmas result because of the destructive behaviors found from the misuse of technology. One of the main dilemmas with surveillance is if the government should be able to surveil society without knowledge or consent. New surveillance technologies are endangering our society’s values and morals.

Throughout the past 20 years in the United States, the government has increased its ability to monitor citizens. This increase was due to changes in law and advancements in technology. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the government dramatically changed the amount of surveillance they were doing. The government also modified their laws, giving law enforcement agencies broad and loosely defined powers with regard to surveillance and monitoring. The agencies were also given unrestricted access to financial records, library records, medical records, and a wide variety of other information and sources. Internet activity, cell phone calls, and telephone calls are all being monitored by the government. Is it ethical for the government to be using this level of surveillance on its citizens? Just because the government has the authority to do these things does not mean it is the best decision to do so.

We must first start with the question as to why the government is monitoring us. People who support government monitoring have argued that the government must actively monitor all of its citizens because it helps discover people involved in major criminal activities. The government casts such a broad net of surveillance on its citizens. By doing so, they treat their citizens as a means to an end. The people of the nation are not being valued as individuals, they’re being used as a means of achieving the government’s goal.

As a society, in order to find out if government monitoring is ethical there has to be reasonable expectations of privacy. One reasonable assumption is that when we speak on the telephone or cellphone, our calls will be private between the people on the call. It is also reasonable to assume that we do not need to worry about someone listening to our conversations without consent or knowledge. As a society, we are entitled to engage in communications without the fear of being listened to or spied upon.

An interesting part of the United States government’s surveillance standards is that they are not held to the same accountability that the constitution protects. There was a case in 1967 arguing against wiretapping a public phone booth without a warrant. The case is known as Katz v. United States. Katz was under suspicion by the FBI to be illegally transferring gambling information to clients at a phone booth. To find out if he was, the FBI wiretapped the phone booth without a warrant. Katz argued that his conversations were protected under the fourth amendment, no unlawful searches and seizures. The court ultimately ruled in Katz favor, but since then wiretapping has been happening more and more without US citizens knowledge (Oyez 1). Due to the fact that the government has a loosely regulated monitoring system of telecommunications and other technologies, it is allowed to wiretap without a warrant and against or will. Since there have been massive changes since the constitution and even since the 1970s, electronic surveillance could be considered much more invasive than an unreasonable physical search. The disparity between these two standards are very concerning.

There are three main ethical issues that have risen in today’s world: intrusion, error and discrimination, and damage to trust. In our own home, we expect to be able to relax and have a space where the public is discarded. With today’s new technologies, it is almost impossible to be out of the public’s eye. One example of intrusion in your home is social media surveillance. When you’re sitting at home on your phone scrolling through instagram or facebook, or any other social media, you are being surveilled. Social Media provides the Department of Homeland Security with a vast trove of information about individuals, including but not limited to personal preferences, political views, religious views, and the identity of friends and family. Intrusion can also occur in public spaces. Private interests like association and family life can be pursued in a public place. These public places can be bars, restaurants, stores, etc. There are also further complications with intrusion such as location privacy and virtual spaces. With new GPS technology people are constantly being tracked. As people of the US, did we consent to being tracked? The government does not care about the people’s consent, they are only looking to benefit themselves.

The new technologies being used throughout the US are not perfect, they can be prone to errors. Some devices can lead the government to a false positive. This means the surveillance technology incorrectly indicated that a particular event happened. False positives can lead to false convictions or false leads in a crime. Many times false positives are linked to facial recognition systems. Chris de Silva, head of Global Face Recognition Solutions in Europe, stated that “with a large list of people to track, too many people look alike” (Silva 1). There is also discrimination errors associated with surveillance. Video camera systems are operated by humans who bring to the job all their existing prejudices and biases. According to a sociological study of how the systems were operated, ‘Black people were between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half times more likely to be surveilled than one would expect from their presence in the population.’ (ACLU 1). Surveilling authorities place too much weight on factors only weakly related to peoples suspiciousness. One way to reduce the discrimination factor would to surveil each individual equally or stop hiring people with biased views. Errors will almost always occur in surveillance and it is difficult to fix them.

As more and more people obtain new surveillance technologies, trust between people and authorities diminishes. America’s national security agencies insist on wielding unaccountable power coupled with “trust us, we’re the good guys”, but the majority of users have no such trust (Benkler 1). If the government is gathering data on people all the time on the basis that they may do something wrong, it promotes a view that as citizens we cannot be trusted. Additionally it is considered to profoundly negatively affect “social cohesion and solidarity”, “fosters suspicion”, and thus can be understood as committing a “slow social suicide”(Ellis 1). The government can prevent mistrust by being more transparent about what they’re surveilling. They could also clarify when surveillance does not imply mistrust like airports. Without trust, our democratic government will start to feel like a monarchy.

One of the main arguments pro surveillance people make is that if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. This argument seems to make sense because most people are law abiding citizens and shouldn’t have anything to worry about. The flaw in this argument is that it can be applied to different situations. What if the government asked everyone to carry around location tracking devices? It would make tracking crime really easy and committing crime almost impossible. Are the people who refuse to carry this device hiding something? No! Most people in our society would would disagree with this solution, not because they wish to commit a crime, but because it is very invasive. It is arguable to assume that the ability to track someone to a reasonable degree, access personal information, know online activities and habits, and listen to phone conversations is equally unacceptable as carrying around a tracking device.

In conclusion, new surveillance technologies are jeopardizing our society’s values and morals. Citizens should not constantly feel watched, it is very uncomforting. Through the act of surveilling, the surveiler gains power. It is closely related to a mother monitoring her infant. The mother has a power over the powerless, and that is exactly where our government is headed (Macnish 1). The government needs to be more open about when and what they are surveilling. It is unfair to the citizens of the United States to constantly be watched because most of the people are law abiding. Although surveilling had many negative effects to ethics, it is very useful when it comes to solving crimes or finding someone. As a country, we have to reassess our values and morals in order to create a more trustworthy society.