In my opinion, the surveillance of U.S. citizens and residents by intelligence agencies is a fundamental departure from the principles of freedom and a serious blow to liberal principles. It is evidenced by the fact that respected human rights organizations, such as Human Right Watch, are releasing new internal documents exposing the CIA’s surveillance of U.S. citizens. All this happens even though the ideals of personal and economic freedom are enshrined in the country’s founding documents.
The US Department of Defense has been given the authority to monitor certain categories of people on the “homegrown extremist elements” list. It raises the question of what criteria security agencies use to put citizens on these lists. According to Human Rights Watch, these criteria are not transparent (Human Rights Watch, 2017). I support the position that intelligent robots help to collect significant amounts of confidential information about people of different social groups and professions. For such reasons, it violates the equality of all people before the law: representatives of these lists, for unknown reasons, lose the right to personal freedom of correspondence and movement around the country. In addition, the intelligence services, without a court order, can gain access to the money accounts of suspects, violating their financial freedom.
Human rights activists received copies of Order 12333, which contains data indicating a desire to use surveillance without warrants. Issuing documents to ratify surveillance, especially by electronic means, is a difficult procedure that requires the submission of serious evidence. Despite this, researcher Sarah St.Vincent believes that the US Department of Defense wants to circumvent possible restrictions with the new policy and find a loophole in the law (2017). It is an obvious fact to me that is a potentially serious violation of human privacy rights. The US Congress and civil society should demand more accountability and transparency from intelligence agencies to avoid ambiguity. It would be a solution to strengthen the foundations of freedom and democracy in the US.
Reference
Human Rights Watch. (2017). US: New evidence suggests monitoring of Americans. Web.