The role of government surveillance in national security has been a prolonged problem in our country. We are faced with a question: is the violation of our privacy really worth the security that could potentially be provided? The beginnings of current government surveillance come from the Patriot Act, passed after 9/11, which granted the president the power to fight the “War on Terror.” The Bush administration used these powers to spy on Al-Qaeda through the NSA electronic surveillance program. The Patriot Act allowed the NSA to freely intercept information without the need for a warrant, so they began intercepting the communications of suspected terrorists in and out of the country. Additionally, Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the government to order documents or any “tangible object” that contains the information it needs, as long as they notify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that the information will be used for a terrorist. investigation. These events have given the NSA the power to spy on people without needing a warrant, as long as they say it is to prevent acts of terror, like 9/11, from happening again. While some may say that government surveillance, particularly that carried out by the NSA, is necessary to ensure national security, it is clear that the negative effects of government espionage, such as the invasion of personal privacy, outweigh the benefits; therefore, the NSA should see its powers and funding reduced. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Some argue that what the NSA is doing is critical to the safety of the American public; these people will argue that giving up some privacy is necessary to ensure the safety of American citizens. However, there is no concrete evidence that the NSA did anything to prevent a terrorist attack. The National Privacy Board released a report, stating that it had not “identified a single case involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a material difference in the outcome” (Perez, 1). The report also states that only one terrorist has been identified in the last seven years and that law enforcement would have found the suspect anyway. In another article, it is reported that the US intelligence budget in 2012 was $75 billion, of which $10 billion went to the NSA (Sahadi, 1). The operation of the NSA has very high costs. They require billions in taxpayer money and the invasion of people's lives, but produce little or no visible results in terms of national security. People argue that even though the NSA has failed to produce visible results, it is still working to protect the American public; if they had prevented an attack, they would not have released classified information about what happened. However, despite all this surveillance, acts of terrorism, such as the Boston bombing and other shootings, still occur. Keeping the NSA running at its current strength is simply not justified. Furthermore, what the NSA is doing is completely unconstitutional. The NSA's bulk collection of metadata goes against the Fourth Amendment, which protects the "right of the people to the security of their persons, homes, papers, and effects, from unreasonable searches and seizures." Wiretaps allow the NSA to secretly collect phone metadata, without a warrant, which they can keep for an indefinite period of time. The interceptions.