Section 702 Pros And Cons

We as Americans want to protect our country with whatever methods we can but, are we willing to give up our rights and privacy for it? How much can we give up until we finally attain a sense of security? Section 702 is one such method that has sparked controversy over the past months for the questionable validity of its intentions. Created in 2008, Section 702 was a part of what is known as the Foreign Intelligence Act. This act gave the right of the government to collect the communications of potential terrorist threats outside the United States without a warrant, allowing for quicker responses to future threats. However, with the collection of these communications, U.S. citizens communications can also be swept up in incidental collection.
The most famous example is the revelations of Snowden, a former contractor for the CIA, who leaked details to the media of the extensive digital surveillance done by the American government on its own people. In his leaks he mentions that the collection was done by using a surveillance program known as PRISM, the same program used under Section 702. It is also revealed that the NSA had hacked into major internet routers around the world, giving easy access to thousands of computers (BBC.com). In the same year a statement was made by the NSA that there had been several cases of agency officers using their position to snoop on current or previous romantic partners. These violations had happened enough times for the practice to gain its own name, known as LOVEINT (Washingtonpost.com). In addition to these disclosures, Section 702 has also been sued by several organizations for privacy violations. They were sued by both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, both non-profit organizations with goals to protect individual rights (EFF.org),(ACLU.org). In their cases they argued that the program was innately harmful and violates the rights to privacy and freedom of speech. Donald Trump himself believed that he was the subject of abuse by the NSA. In his tweets before the vote to renew the act he wrote “House votes on controversial FISA ACT today. This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?, (FoxNews.com)”. However, he then sends out a second tweet suddenly professing his support of the act, “With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get