One of the many key problems that arose with Snowden’s leaking of private information was that the American people were notified of the government spying on them. When the government spies on non-U.S. citizens, they obtain information from U.S. citizens as well. After Snowden’s case, president Obama set up a policy that would lessen the amount of information the government attains. Although Obama’s 2014 directive still allowed the NSA to get some information from the American people, it was still a step forward.
Before the directive, the government could hang on to any information they received, which gave them admission to do whatever they want with the collected data. But Obama’s policy allowed the NSA to have the information for only five years. After the five years, if the collected information is unimportant, it gets deleted. Mark Rumold, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated, “now they’ve [the government] started to implement small changes around the margins… that is an improvement – but still not a particularly substantial change” (Rumold). Although some Americans were still upset about the fact that the NSA could still get their information, the policy made the government focus only on the important non-U.S. citizens’ information rather than any U.S. citizen’s information. Therefore, the policy is still a small step toward not having the government spy on Americans as heavily.
I think that may be a good step for the government to reassure citizens, but some may still feel like that’s not enough.
LikeLike
With the new FCC law that was recently implemented, citizens are now aware and encouraged to limit the amount of information they choose to share. In today’s world, nothing is ever actually “deleted”; I do agree with the government spying of suspicious individuals that they feel is a threat and they shouldn’t categorize just foreigners because there are plenty of non-patriotic citizens living in America.
LikeLike
The Government, while starting to take small steps, has a long way to go. The Obama administration attempted to fix the problem, but left many citizens unhappy with how the issue was handled. With the recent presidential election, do you believe that we will see further progress with protecting our information or will we be taking steps back?
LikeLike