Newly leaked documents have revealed that the National Security Agency is gathering electronic images of Americans and using facial recognition technology to identify individuals, escalating ongoing arguments about whether domestic surveillance is a necessary security measure or a violation of privacy. Here are the leading arguments for and against the NSA’s surveillance programs:
FOR
- Spares Americans hassle of having to send data to NSA themselves
- Carefully monitors the activities of 318 million suspected terrorists in the United States alone
- Sophisticated facial recognition technology instantly identifies people as good or evil
- Already successful in preventing a completely undisclosed number of terrorist plots
- No potential for program to be abused
- Protects Americans from those looking to take away our liberties
- It’s too late, so let’s just try to find something to like about it, okay?
AGAINST
- Flagrant invasion of Americans’ illusion of privacy
- Successful multi-trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already vanquished terrorism once and for all
- Endings of many science-fiction novels
- Gut
- Ugh, sort of proves conspiracy theorists halfway right
- Investigating someone’s email without consent wrong outside of marriage
- Country kind of founded on opposite principles