Government Surveillance Research Paper

The history of surveillance started with the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights in 1791. In 1919, the US Department of State approved the creation of the Cipher Bureau which was also known as “Black Chamber. The Cipher Bureau was the precursor to the NSA and it was the first peacetime federal intelligence agency in the US. In 1945. Project SHAMROCK was a large scale spying operation that was designed to get telegraphic data going in and out of the United States. It was terminated in 1975 when lawmakers started investigating it since it was started without court authorization. 1952 was when President Harry Truman issued a directive to create the National Security Agency (NSA) after WWII to consolidate surveillance activities. In 1972 the
Americans are divided in their concerns about government surveillance of digital communications. In a survey 17% of Americans are very concerned about government surveillance, 35% is somewhat concerned, 33% are not very concerned, and 13% are not at all concerned with government surveillance. When asked about more specific concerns some people expressed lower concerns. 39% of Americans are very or somewhat concerned about the government monitoring of their activity on search engines, 38% concerned with the monitoring of email messages, 37% with activity on their cellphone, 29% with mobile apps, and 31% concerned with social media like Facebook and Twitter. The public is evenly split about the capacity of the judicial system to balance privacy rights with intelligence agency and law enforcement needs. Americans are more comfortable targeting others for surveillance but not themselves. 82% say it’s acceptable to monitor communications of suspect terrorists, 60% say it is acceptable to monitor American leaders, 60% say it is okay to monitor communications of foreign leaders, and 54% say it is acceptable to monitor foreign citizens. 77% believe it is acceptable to monitor US citizen when the person visited child pornography websites. 68% are with monitoring someone who exchanged emails with an imam who preached against infidels, 67% are with monitoring Anti-American groups, and 65% are with monitoring who made search engine queries for keywords related to explosives and automatic weapons. 51% say it is okay to monitor those who are reported by their bank for making unusual withdrawals, 49% are ok with the monitoring of people who use encryption software to hide files, and 49% think it is okay to monitor people who had friends or followers on social media who used hateful language about American