Every since 9/11, the surveillance in the United States has become stricter and of more importance. The security is more top-notch than it has ever been because of the fear a future terrorist attack striking once again. The United States government is doing this for safety issues and the protection of Americans, but many are against the whole idea of having the government spy on you and others actually agree with it.
John Yoo who was the deputy assistant general in the Justice Department's office of Legal Councel and he also took part in the legality of the NSA domestic surveillance program. Yoo supports government surveillance.
One of Yoo's arguments is since that the enemy is a group of ...view middle of the document...
When Yoo is asked about electronic surveillance he says that the computers are searching through the communications that may have something that could be a threat and then it is sent to the attention of a security officer who is certain that this person could be a potential suspect. Yoo says that throughout this wartime, the U.S. is fighting an enemy and in situations like these the government has to take action. American people do want the government to fight Al Qaeda and defeat them but we cannot reveal publicly what we are doing. There are things that are planned to harm the enemy but if it becomes open to the public it would no longer be effective and Al Qaeda could easily find out.
Jack Goldsmith was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel that supervises the executive branch on the legality of specific actions; he is against the government surveillance of American citizens. When Goldsmith sees Hamdi (a U.S. citizen suspected of fighting with the Taliban) he believes that even though they had the right authority to detain him he did not believe this was a right way to do so. Goldsmith believes that the conditions of the prison should be different. Goldsmith talks about how the terrorist surveillance program has flawed legal opinions and how the government keeping everything secretive when it comes to the counterterrorism policies. Goldsmith knew that the government was doing things that the Office of the Legal Consel would consider as flawed.
When Goldsmith read Yoo's Sept. 25, 2001 memo it said that the president has the authority to use military forces to make sure the nation is safe from future terrorist attacks. The idea in the memo was that the president had all of this power...
