Ethics and Surveillance Analysis Essay
Having the ability to synthesize a vast amount of information into a succinct and logical explanation is a skill that when mastered can help one be successful in graduate school. Within the field of intelligence the literature is vast and robust, so to aid in your understanding of this body of knowledge the assignments in this course require you to write a review of the literature. The purpose of this assignment is to help improve your depth of knowledge the different concepts covered, and to further prepare you to move forward in your scholarship.
For this literature review, you must select to focus on the literature covered during one of the following weeks.
For example you may focus on clandestine operations, lethal targeting (of leaders, terrorists, etc), ethics and surveillance, ethics and cyber monitoring, ethics, or cyber warfare.
Your literature review must be developed using 12-15 or more scholarly sources, which should include the assigned readings covered during that week. Within each week there are a number of recommended readings that would serve as an excellent starting point to kick start your research (you should keep in mind that not all of these are available within the online library as this recommended list is simply a list of accumulated knowledge, not knowledge housed within the online library). Regardless of your topic of choice you should conduct an article search within the online library within EBSCO and JStor database, and also conduct a book search to help you develop your literature review.
The goal of this literature review is to demonstrate the scope of knowledge that is available on these key topic areas. As such a good literature review is a thoughtful synthesis of important information that pertains to the topic at hand. Literature reviews include a summary and critical assessment of the arguments that exist (including whether or not you agree with them) and are arranged thematically. At the end of your literature review, you should discuss where research should go next. Are you persuaded by the arguments/findings of one author or another? Why? How could the research be improved upon (theoretically, methodologically, relevancy-wise, and etc)? Be sure you present any idea that you might have regarding how you would look at the topic area.
Developing a clear and concise literature review can be challenging. NOTE: Literature reviews can be a bit tricky to write. Check out this video to help you further prepare to write this assignment. This will not be the last time that you are asked to write a literature review in your academic career so its important to master this skill. Also check out the following documents: 1) literature review tip sheet and 2) synthesis matrix. Together these documents will give you everything you need to carry out a successful literature review.
How many sources should I review?
This is a common question asked by students. Essentially the key to an excellent research paper is the research that helps back up its arguments. While this might be an unsatisfactory answer for those in need of a clear "magic number" a few additional observations can be made. Students writing a course paper 15-20 pages in length should expect to cite 15-30 peer-reviewed sources within their papers, though in order to get to this point they should expect to read 25-50 peer-reviewed sources. For this assignment your literature review should reference 12-15 or more scholarly sources.
Format: This assignment should be 8-10 pages in length not including title and reference page. Your paper should have 1-inch borders on all four sides, use times new roman-12 point font, be double spaced, and not have an extra space in between paragraphs. (You may need to turn this off in MS word by going to paragraph and selecting "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style). Since this is an INTL course you need to use the Turabian parenthetical citation style with a references page.
Ethics and Surveillance
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Ethics and Surveillance
The majority of Americans presently understand that they are under surveillance either by governmental or non-governmental organizations, thereby raising ethical questions on such acts. Surveilling over citizens in the US is something that keeps growing with advancements in technology. As more people become reliant on technological tools such as mobile phone developments, emailing, or social media use, they open more avenues for surveillance by other parties. Often, the government answers questions on surveillance with the fact that it is a move to ensure the safety of the same concerned individuals. That keeps rendering individuals in a state of dilemma on whether they should choose their privacy or security. Partly, the answer lies in the ethics behind the surveillance. In this literature review, emphasis is put on exploring ethics and surveillance. Surveillance, as it is currently structured, is unethical and must be abolished with more moral avenues developed in ensuring the security of the people.
Theoretical Framework
The onset of surveillance can be traced to the panopticon disciplinary concept. The panopticon process stems from a prison setting analogy. In prison is a central observation tower in which a guard can see through all cells. However, prisoners can never know whether they are watched or not (Stoddart, 2014). Within the confines of this model, the guards believed that behaviors could be altered to match the presumed acceptable standards. The panopticon model was established by Jeremy Bentham to explore human behaviors through visible but unverifiable power. The model cemented a belief that if implemented appropriately, the panopticon should help in behavioral changes (Macnish, 2014). People can be more adherent if they believe that their evil or illegal behaviors are watched.
The government keeps employing the inputs of the panopticon in its attempts towards contemporary surveillance. The most popular governmental explanation on surveillance is that people who have nothing to hide should not fear surveillance (Stoddart, 2014). The extension of this argument has reached a point where the government defends its surveillance behaviors by indicating its value in delivering safety. Contemporary technological advancements take panopticon disciplinary measures to a new height. Presently, eavesdropping and spy glasses are rendered irrelevant. Spies do not need to be present anymore to conduct surveillance. With the reliance on computers, people’s actions are more traceable, searchable, recordable, and observable. Surveillance has grown more intrusive than ever, thereby raising ethical concerns.
Legal Guidelines
Surveillance in the US has attracted debates based on its legality. The 5th Amendment deters the government, intelligence community, or law enforcement agencies from conducting unreasonable seizures and searches on US citizens. Still, the 4th Amendment protects US citizens from physical searches without a warrant from the court (Menichelli, 2013). These constitutional inputs, however, have been eliminated on multiple grounds when surveillance is considered reasonable. Law enforcement authorities and intelligence community members have consistently conducted surveillance with the outcomes used as admissible evidence in court cases. The passage of FISA and subsequent laws did not ease the situation as the citizens have not been given the necessary protection on electronic surveillance (Hong, 2017). The changes in lifestyle and technology since the 1970s have complicated the need to protect oneself, and surveillance has grown to be more invasive than ever before.
Privacy has become the core argument against surveillance. Surveillance threatens the privacy of individuals, something that is both unethical and unconstitutional. Privacy, like the law regarding surveillance, has attracted multiple turns in the intelligence community (Macnish, 2014). The right to privacy is, at the very least, the right accorded an individual to be alone without underlying surveillance. People deserve their private moments without the worry that someone is watching their every move. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), the right to privacy is established as according citizens the freedom to make important choices without the interventions of the government. Katz v. the United States (1967) is another case that has been cited as a precedent to ensuring citizens’ privacy with an emphasis on respecting the 4th Amendment (Königs, 2020). With the government showing no intent to respect the constitution on matters of surveillance, questions are raised on the ethical grounds of their defense to their actions.
Ethical Concerns
The argument that surveillance helps in enhancing security is ethically inadequate and should be revised. Primarily, while collecting data and a range of personal pieces of information to protect people, there is an unavoidable creation of a wide data set that is vulnerable to abuse by trusted users (Menichelli, 2013). Identifiable data or recordings in the intelligence community’s hubs contain sensitive information, some of which can be used for the wrong reasons by the people who are trusted to protect such pieces of information. Such incidences have occurred before in the intelligence community. For instance, in 2007, Benjamin Robinson, a special agent of the Department of Commerce, was found guilty of employing a government database called Treasury Enforcement Communication Systems (TECS) to track the patterns of an ex-girlfriend and her family (Menichelli, 2013). Robinson used the system illegally 163 times before he was arrested and indicted of the crime. The intelligence community is expanding first, and more people are becoming privy to the intelligence gathering, storage, and dissemination within the security organs. As such, more people entrusted with private pieces of information can use them immorally.
The other ethical concern surrounding surveillance is that the intelligence community can fail to deliver on its mandate to protect the people. As noted, security is cited as the primary reason why the intelligence community gathers information from members of the public. However, not much criticism is directed to occasions where the gathered intelligence becomes the primary threat to the security of the people. Such a case occurred in 2013 when Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) employee and a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) subcontractor, offered to disclose multiple surveillance programs by the NSA and the CIA. Snowden’s case triggered multiple concerns considering the scope of his dossier. According to Snowden, the intelligence community, telecommunication companies, and a range of European governments surveilled their citizens. Snowden would soon become a fugitive making it easier for him to sell or disclose the information to other unfriendly governments or terrorist organizations. If the disclosures had led to such extreme threats to national security, the intelligence community would have failed in defending their primary reason of surveilling the citizens when their actions trigger more risks. The advancements in technology only open platforms for more cases like Snowden’s.
Surveillance is also conducted unethically, thereby making it unethical. The intelligence community would be more responsible if it conducted the surveillance openly. On the grounds the people have nothing to hide from the security agencies, individuals should be accorded the courtesy to have a say on how surveillance is conducted (Carvalho, Correia, & Serra, 2018). The fact that their private lives are at stake with surveillance implies that they are primary stakeholders to the challenges. Occasions have arisen where people are coerced into adhering to surveillance. Not much effort is accorded the consent from the public, thereby making surveillance an act conducted in bad faith. Masking the surveillance activities in the guise of not surveilling the population is a betrayal of trust and amounts to unethical behaviors.
The government collects data from their citizens with bad intentions while disputing public concerns as paranoia. Ethical operations are when every stakeholder works openly and showcases his/her motivation in the context of executing the roles (Zajko, 2018). Traditionally, the government has defended its surveillance moves by insisting that their actions are simple and the public outcry is a case of unnecessary paranoia. On the contrary, evidence indicates that the intelligence community i...