Should Local Government Should Monitoring Internet Activity?

" Monitoring internet content has been a widely debated topic as of late. Some governmental agencies think monitoring internet activity could help identify and stop potential terrorist attacks, but others argue that doing so invades personal privacy. There is also the issue of freedom of speech when monitoring internet content. The First Amendment guarantees U.S. citizens to freely state their ideas without risk of censorship, retaliation, or sanction. This does not protect people who speak in ways that are obscene, profane, pornographic, etc. The issue becomes more convoluted when the internet is the platform for speech. Government is in a difficult position, and following are my opinions on what the different levels of government should
Starting with local government, to what extent should they monitor internet content? The city council and mayor are not in a high enough position of power to justify monitoring citizens internet content. The means of monitoring local internet activity is usually too difficult for many towns to effectively perform due to cost. I live in a small town, and news travels fast. If the local council wanted to monitor internet activity, they would be in serious violation of privacy laws, specifically intrusion of solitude. However, a school has a governmental structure within the administration. The school board and city council have similar jobs, just on different scales. I believe that a high school would have the right to monitor its students’ internet activity. For example, if someone is getting bullied on campus, the school would step in and punish those involved. The internet is not on campus, but the students still should be held accountable for their actions outside of school, as in the case of substance use laws. If a law is broken by students outside of school, the school will
One of the most recent issues with federal government and internet monitoring has been with terrorism and threats to national security. The 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino led the federal government to ask Apple for assistance in unlocking the attackers iPhone. The government said that looking at texts, calls, internet activity, and other files would help them in determining if there was still a security risk. Apple refused to assist because they said it would compromise the trust users have in the company. That trust is the right to privacy, and I believe that the government should not be allowed to invade citizens privacy even if national security is at risk. Furthermore, high ranking government officials such as the President should not be allowed to post to public internet servers. Purposing legislation over twitter is not a reasonable way to run the country, and spending time to write a tweet is a risk to national security because that time should be spent running the country. The government cannot betray the ideals of our nation under any circumstance, otherwise we lose the special qualities that make America