Should the Federal government be allowed to listen in on international phone calls between a suspected terrorist in another country and someone in the US?
(88% of the 2302.8006 class thought yes).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2008012902909.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I think that yes, federal government officials should be allowed to do this. I don't think it infringes upon any of the meanings of liberty we have discussed in class.
That being said, I feel this is much less intrusive than the Patriot Act. It was discussed in class that this could lead to racial profiling, to which I reply, 1) This isn't racial profiling, it's profiling by country of origin, it has nothing to do with race, and 2) racial profiling isn't always a bad thing. If you can correctly identify a criminal in a crowd of people, isn't that good? If you can avoid the resource cost of interviewing and cross interviewing the entire crowd by spotting certain individuals that, based on historical consistency, are statistically more likely to be guilty of the crime in question, isn't that a good thing?
-Mr. Powell
I have to agree with derek that warantless surveillance is not so much an infringement upon liberty, but more of a tool to promote it. Racial profiling or not, I don't think it is by prejudice or racist notions that the executive branch would target a group of people with a certain racial background. After all, most of the suspected as well as convicted terrorists happen to be of middle eastern origins. And i don't mean this as a racist comment either, but rather based on facts and common knowledge. Would it make sense to focus on wiretapping some eskimos in the antarctic? Or middle eastern countries where currently terrorist activities are most prevalent? Also if the information acquired in this surveillance is confined on a need to know basis and only to the people concerned in the executive branch, it is not really an invasion of privacy. I think it is a small price to pay for national security. Where there is something to be gained, there must first be loss, and the outcome determines whether it is worth the trade. I think it is.
yes, i think the federal government should be allowed to do this coz it will help to fight against the terrorism and as the world is getting closer by the help of communication,it should be ckecked.
-sanjay k kurmi
Post a Comment