I'm writing a persuasive essay about why the NSA should stop its spying. I'm looking for help finding good arguments and counterarguments. I really want to educated my class about what's happening. If you have any statistics or examples from history that would be great just please provide citation if possible. If you have any good articles that would also be very helpful.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HSkBxYK0VKqaJzOOunR_YKKKaKxtlDMCVlbvPGpc7aA/edit
Thanks in advance
Find similar historical events, and you'll have all the answers you need, history truly does repeat itself, over and over again, on both a micro- and macro-scale.
For instance: the Anglo-American world has become very prudish and over-regulatory since the fall of the Soviet Union. Is this a new thing, or has it happened in the past?
For instance, did you know that abortion for women was legalized by Lenin in 1922, but abolished again by Stalin? Well, it was not because Stalin was a devote christian obviously... He just needed the babies as cannon fodder because he was constantly preparing for war. Same with the Islam, which was pretty liberal and had a vivid scientific and mathematical scene going on at a time where Christianity had decided that people shouldn't learn anything, not even read or write, and that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant. After the wave of imperialism by the Christian leaders (the Crusades), Islam leadership became a lot stricter and started to ban science, literacy, and (especially women's) rights just like Christianity, because they needed the cannon fodder for their imperialist counter-attack, which is still going on right now.
These movements in changing "government morality" always go hand in hand with a reinforcement of intelligence services, and a transformation of intelligence and law enforcement organizations from civil defensive outfits to militarized offensive outfits: civil law enforcement outfits become paramilitary organizations with special powers and legal impunity, military intelligence monopolizes technology and science and locks it away from civilians, intelligence outfits start to focus on making enemies abroad instead of preventing foreign attacks on their own country, and start focusing on stealing technology and scientific insights with a possible military purpose instead of on their real job, which is counter-intelligence. Programs for mass manipulation by psychotropic substances, developed by the CIA and NSA from the 50's through the 70's, are gradually introduced into the population to prepare them for docile behaviour and "patriotic" conditioning, for instance, the most successful MK-Ultra drugs are gradually legalized and introduced into the US population.
Of course, the population doesn't want war, then why is the government preparing for it? History teaches us time in time again that this kind of government initiative doesn't end well. Isn't that enough reason why the NSA and CIA should stop offensive intelligence projects, both against their own citizens and against other countries and people?
Then there is the principle of democratic natural justice, as perfectly translated by Lord Hewart: "Justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done". Secret courts, whatever useful function they might have, are always contrary to justice. The same is true for the secret gathering of evidence. If intelligence gathering through covert operations leads to an act of exacting or enforcing, how ever noble the purpose may be (the road to hell is paved with good intentions), it is always unjust and contrary to the principles on which the governmental power is based.
Then there is the principle of human rights and civil rights: the government has nothing but a temporary lease of power, the government is nothing but a lessee, and the population is the lessor. Obviously, when the government uses a counter-intelligence administration, which is what the NSA really is, to spy upon it's own lessors, this leads to a violation of the democratic balance of power, and that means that democracy has been destroyed, because you can't have democracy on certain topics, and totalitarianism on other topics, it's an all or nothing situation. If the NSA works against the citizens, it can't be working for the citizens, if it's not working for the citizens, it's violating it's very reason for existence, and by allowing that, the government is violating it's democratic contract with the citizens.
Basically, what the NSA is doing right now, is exactly the same as what the Stasi did in the former DDR, what the Gestapo did in the Third Reich, what the Smersh did in Stalinist Soviet Russia, what the Spanish Inquisition did in Roman-Christian feudal Europe, etc... However you twist and turn and reinterpret, it's exactly the same. Rule number one: if it looks the same, tastes the same, feels the same, guess what... it probably is the same. There is not one single instance throughout history, where this kind of activity has had a happy ending, not one!
Listen to Zoltan. I believe he just wrote the majority of your paper for you.
zoltan seems to be pretty much dead on. but one thing i use to make people stop and think is to ask them if it's ok to make a copy of every piece of mail they receive file that away and only use it against you later in life. laws change all the time and they make up there own rules half the time so even though it's legal today, tomorrow or even 5 years from now it could be illegal.