From the moment you were born, you had the protection of your parents. You knew that if you needed them, they would be there to protect you. You felt safe, as if you were completely secure. However, having security does not always make people feel safe. The government is like our parents, keeping us in order to make us feel safe. Yet, not all regulations created make us feel safe. For instance, after 9/11 in 2001, the government released the Patriot Act. This allowed for the government to conduct mass surveillance on American citizens in the name of security and protection. This law does not make Americans feel safe. It may have before, when it was created twenty-one years ago. But twenty-one years ago security and protection were helpful. Now, they are harmful. The government should not be allowed to over-engage in surveillance of their citizens in the interests of national security.

First off, The government does not have any reason to conduct mass surveillance. To begin with,  the article “The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance is Not the Way Forward” written in September of 2021 states “After 9/11, Congress rushed to pass the Patriot Act, ushering in a new era of mass surveillance” (Toomey and Gorski 2). This Act was created back in 2001, which was twenty-one years ago. The main reason this Act was passed was to conduct security to protect the people, but over two decades after, it is not needed anymore. Furthermore, the article states that “... the NSA was conducting bulk surveillance abroad… under an authority known as Executive Order 12333” (Toomey and Gorski 2). This Executive Order was passed in 1981, which was forty years ago. Many changes have been made in forty years, which outdates the order. So, what is the point of still using it? Lastly, the authors state that “... Congress must place much-needed limits, at long last, on the mass spying programs of the past 20 years” (Toomey and Gorski 4). The authors have recognized that the amount of spying the government does on Americans is unnecessary. The government conducts way too much spying on their citizens, which is not needed anymore.

Additionally, the government should not be allowed to spy on their citizens because of the illegal collecting of data the C.I.A had done. To explain, the article “Letter Reveals C.I.A Collects Data That Invades Americans’ Privacy,” quotes a letter written by two senators: “The Central Intelligence Agency has for years been collecting in bulk, without a warrant, some kind of data that can affect Americans’ privacy” (Savage 1). Two senators, associated with the C.I.A, admitted to illegally collecting Americans’ data. Some people might say that the letter is false. But, while the letter may be a lie, the article also explains how “The C.I.A kept censored the nature of the data when it declassified the letter” (Savage 1). The C.I.A wanted to hide something. This could prove that they did actually collect private information without a warrant, since the C.I.A purposely redacted what the letter said the government was collecting. In the same manner, the article explains how the New York Times accused AT&T: “The New York Times reported that the C.I.A had been paying AT&T to analyze its vast trove of call records” (Savage 1). The C.I.A had supposedly bribed AT&T in order to collect data. This is illegal, and unfair to the people who use AT&T. Because of the New York Times, the letter the two senators wrote is more credible.

To conclude, the government should not be allowed to engage in the surveillance of their citizens due to the fact that they have no reason to collect this data, and they have already been collecting data like this without a warrant. While some people say that the government needs to watch over their citizens, they do not have any reason to, nor do they have the right to spy on us illegally. It is blatant that the government is abusing their power. If mass surveillance continues, our world will slowly turn into those dystopian societies only seen in books. The time to act is now, or else books will become reality.