Justice Department Stops Illegal NSA Surveillance of U.S. Citizens

Almost all of the surveillance in question involves NSA eavesdropping on the phone calls and e-mails of average Americans without a warrant or probable cause to monitor such communication. The Justice Department has announced that it was bringing the program into compliance, but provided no details about the exact issues that it found with the program. Since 2005, the surveillance free-for-all that was unleashed in the Patriot Act has been somewhat restricted, but the problems with the current system are unlikely to go away.

The government is essentially left to police itself on this matter and we know that approach is wholly ineffective. It is likely that NSA is filtering most of the electronic communications that occur around the country on a daily basis. They certainly have the technology to do so, even though the value of that approach is questionable at best.

Most Americans are opposed to that type of government oversight of personal communications as a privacy concern, while some others will make the argument that it's fine with them because they have nothing to hide. In the interest of national security and with the memories of 9/11 ever-present in the minds of Americans, it's unlikely the government is going to limit itself from accessing personal communications of Americans.

The downside of getting caught performing illegal surveillance is far less than the downside of missing a string of e-mails that outlines a terrorist attack on the mainland United States.