Nonfiction Reading Response

Article: "Watching You" by Patricia Smith, The New York Times Upfront Newspaper

Part 1

    This article is about government surveillance in the United States its effects, and citizens thoughts on this surveillance. According to Smith, after the deadly 911 terrorist attacks government has grown immensely in security. Most people have become accustomed to this security and believe that it should be done to keep everyone safe, but others believe it is a violation. Although this way of security/surveillance has already stopped a terrorist attack, some people still think it should be stopped because it is an invasion of privacy. They believe that they should be given privacy as states the constitutions fourth amendment. The fourth amendment “protects unreasonable searches and seizures” and people believe this is a violation of the amendment.

Part 2

    In the first half of the article, the author shows that most people with power believe that “you can’t have 100 percent security and also 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” (Smith 1). They believe that the nation should be safe and to be safe it has to have this type of security. Since the author wrote this, I believe that her opinion is that this type of security is needed to keep everyone safe. In the first half she also talks about how a terrorist attack was already stopped because of the company that inspects emails, and chats (Prism). It stopped an Al Queda operative that was planning to backpack bomb the New York subway because they were able to intercept through an email. On the other hand, in the other half of this article Smith shows regular citizens opinions, all of them are about privacy violation. This made me think that maybe she was against this type of security. She wrote about how this type of security violated the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment states that police need a court-issued warrant to look in your home to listen to phone calls and a probable cause to search your care. In the end I think that the author wants the readers to think that the security is needed because it has already stopped a terrorist attack and if people want to keep safe then we need this type of security.

Part 3

    This article gave me many thoughts on the government and if this amount of security is actually needed in the United States. Because already government has stopped a terrorist attack with this “type” of security, I believe that this is a good thing. In my opinion if it will keep us safe, it is worth it. This article reminds me of the 911 attacks and if they could’ve been stopped if there was this much security at that time.