An Invasion of Privacy?:
A Look into NSA Domestic Surveillance Policies
Legal and Ethical Issues

The legality of the NSA surveillance remains unclear. Claypool (2014) insists that the first two federal court cases in the District Court of the District of Colombia and the District Court for the Southern District of New York have made split rulings on the issue. The former ruling it was unconstitutional while the latter ruling it was not unconstitutional. The laws and ethics of this issue are seemingly complicated. In addition, according to Claypool (2014), Judge Richard J. Leon of the District Court of Columbia said that the data acquired without court monitoring goes against the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, while, in contrast, Judge William Pauley said that the NSA had every right to acquire this data post 9/11 and goes further on to say that Americans do not really care about their own privacy. Already, the NSA has moral and ethical grounds to use this technology, because if they do not, and a disaster happens that could have been prevented, then the American public will blame the loss on the government. Ethically, the government does have the right to protect its citizens at all costs as it forms one of the basis of which the country was found. However, does it constitute the government to extend their abilities in the cyber realm and ‘spy on its citizens’? The answer is a resounding yes because the lives of people are more important than their privacy.