Works CitedCandace Parrish12.07.07Eng. 111-026A War on Terror:Surveillance OverloadLet’s say that I’m an angry kid whose ice cream has fallen on the ground because I was pushed from behind. Not knowing who pushed me I turn around and see another kid, who happens to be you, eating your ice cream joyfully, and I assume that you were the one who pushed me. Now let’s say that instead of confronting you directly, I interrogate your friends, I watch as you go home, and I gather a few of your poor grades and bad records and head straight to the principal’s office. The next day, you’re sent to the principal’s office and held there all day only to find that you have been suspended for the next two weeks for terrorizing other students on the playground. How would you feel? Disgusted? Outraged? These to name a few must be anyone’s first feelings when they find out that they have been under the tight surveillance of the United States government. If the government continues to stick its nose into private lives using Internet surveillance, telephone records, and the casual monitoring (spying) of civilians, it will one day lose its ability to differentiate terrorism from every day life. By the time government fully realizes the extent of its actions, it will have dug a massive hole of disrespect in America’s contiguous countries (principally the Middle Eastern countries), putting its cohort citizens in great danger.The internet provides billions of people with tons of information every day, so itwould be no surprise to me that the government would use the Internet as an access keyto breaking down terrorist plots. As time goes on the government has amended old rights and created new acts to justify and allow them to retrieve more information on suspects or suspicious activities via the Internet. For example in the Bill of rights, amendment four states that we as citizens are allowed to secure our belongings against unreasonable searches and seizures (“U.S. Constitution”). However, the Patriot Act passed a few years ago allows the government to access our information, internet records, and emails, before they actually let you know they are searching (“USA Patriot Act”). This type of change can be very necessary because when times changes laws and rules should definitely be modified, but to what extent? If you ask the average America their thoughts on the Patriot Act and the overall “electronic surveillance” of the Government you might find that the majority might respond with “I've got nothing to hide. . . surveillance doesn't bother me”(Dean). This is because they don’t realize the major consequences this could have on our country on a larger scale. The problem I have with the newly accepted Patriot Act (internet surveillance) is that because a person won’t know when or where he or she is being spied on, and because there is no judge involved, there will be no one to determine whether or not the unknown surveillance is justifiable. Ultimately this will backfire on the government because as it over uses internet surveillance to pick up suspicious information it will have searched so many different facets of the web that they will receive overwhelming amounts of false information. This will make it easier for the government to falsely accuse people and harder for them to protect our country against terrorist attacks. They will never be sure of which of the billion internet terrorist leads to follow. This will also create dissatisfaction among the people from other countries being recklessly accused.As a result it will be extremely hard for the U.S to be trustworthy enough to form alliances. Telephone observations are a great way to monitor suspicious activity because you can actually hear how the conversation is playing out. Nevertheless, if the United States government and its officials continue to randomly pick Muslim “enemy combatants” to scrutinize, they will dull their hearing for an actual terrorist plot. Not only that but they will also add to their list of unknown invasions through telephone tapping. According to John Dean, major phone corporations such as Verizon reported that they gave telephone information to the government on 94,000 different occasion between January 2005 and September 2007 (Dean). This type of invasion to privacy is overwhelming, I’m sure we haven’t even have fifty percent of these occasion processed as “terrorism”. Even though we, the people of the United States are supposed to be protected by the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the government found way to intrude into peoples lives, through the unknown listening of telephone conversations. At a U.S. Senate Judicial Committee hearing Alberto Gonzales states that under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the government is allowed “to begin electronic surveillance without a court order for up to 72 hours in emergency situations or circumstances” (Georgia10). This provision would be excellent, if it was insured that the government would not take their powers too far. In the future I predict that the whole telephone tapping and internet surveillance issue will be stretched to its maximum and allow unknown terrorist to break through the weary surface of our security systems skin. The U.S. will have so many terrorist leads to follow that we will no longer know who the enemy is or what weshould be looking for. Sun Tzu of China once said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear. . .” (qtd. in Hoffman). Years ago spies were an excellent way to retrieve information from opposing countries. In our situations today spying could come in handy if it were only going to be used for the protection of this country, and not used out of control. In the case of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, I feel that the whole spying situation had gotten out of control. While reading about his issue I found no hardcore evidence, yet only suspicions of him plotting against Bush (Markon and Peiest A4). He was captured, held, and tortured for over a year with no solid evidence, only assumptions. This to me is an excellent way to get neighboring countries to turn against the U.S. Government. If the government is going to have everyone seized who has connections to another country that it believes is suspicious, it is most likely going to start to be bothersome to officials and authorities from those countries. They will no longer trust your reasoning nor trust you