Is the NSA serving American interests?

By: Brandon Bales

Hello Mr. Visnaw. My name is Brandon Bales and due to my deep interest in politics, I
want to research a rather controversial topic since the tragedy of 9/11, the NSA. In my proposal,
I will go over my goals, reasons, expectations of research, personal interest, public interest, and
why I am committed so that you can see why this is sufficient research for me.
As someone who educates, you clearly understand the importance of setting goals when
trying to stay on the tasks at hand. The goal of my proposal is to discover whether or not the
NSA is serving its purpose under the Patriot Act. I want to discover: Could the NSA just be a
colossal waste of money all this time? Is the controversy of whether or not it is infringing on our
first and fourth amendment rights founded? Is there large potential for corruption?
The reason I am interested in learning about whether or not the NSA is performing its
role properly is because of the revelation of Edward Snowdens whistleblowing. We learned of
the vast extent of the NSAs power to literally view and listen to everything at all times and
record it into a massive database that can isolate anything based on algorithms. Congressmen
in interviews who spoke on the Patriot Act have come out saying that they had no clue that the
NSA would get this extensive of power. Obama argued the affirmative that Snowden wasnt
releasing the whole story and that he was giving piecemeal.
I would also add that its important for people to come to some sort of fundamental
stance on the function of the NSA. That stance being, is it okay to recede freedoms for security?
And to what extent? This was a brought up a little bit during one of the early Republican debates
between Chris Christie (pro-NSA) and Rand Paul (pro-rights). The main argument from Chris
Christie is that you cant find the terrorists unless you have access to everyones technology.
The main argument from Rand Paul is that the NSA ultimately usurps the rights guaranteed by
the first and fourth amendments to freedom of speech and the freedom of privacy (against

unreasonable searches and seizures) and that this is against the constitution and a nations
interest in freedoms.
Another argument that can be made is whether or not the NSA is a waste of money.
Theres talk of whether or not the NSA is worth being trusted with such incredible power when it
produces such little results.
The last argument that Ive heard is that of corruption. If there was a sort of McCarthyism
in the air, would the NSA take it upon itself to cross the line into warrantless searches? Is this
power that we feel comfortable granting a seemingly stable government that has the potential to
take a right from you that you can never get back?
Again, with these factors in mind, I intend to determine whether or not the NSA is
ultimately serving American interests.
Part of my own motivation is that I am personally interested in the broad topics that are
politics, government, law, and history. I find myself debating my grandparents, parents, and
family about many topics including the NSA. When people participate in debate, it is important
that you actually understand what you are talking about. Even though this sounds like common
sense, it is lost when people have been convinced by a form of news, respected individual, or
simply words that entered your head at some point some way. Its very easy to fall prey to
someone that might sound like it makes sense or fits your schema of the world, but its not a
proper way of going about debate. You must have ammunition to have a real, solid foundation
for argument. If your answer is, because Fox News said so then you are just like everyone
else. There are certain biases to all forms of media. This is why I want to perform a statistically,
informative, sound research project that will largely unblur the lines and set visuals on the
objectivity of argument regarding the NSA and grant you the ability to articulate in a fact based
way why you feel the way you do. I myself, am heavily biased on the subject at hand. I
personally feel like there is never an excuse to give the government any ability that could
ultimately usurp your rights with whatever justification it wants to use. Im not on the side of

conspiracy theorists that suggest that this is for sure what the government plans to do, but the
idea is to limit the scope of government so that they could never do such a thing. I personally
believe that the only way any official should have access to your information is when there is a
warrant presented. I combine the idea of the fourth amendment being affected with the first
amendment because they are ultimately storing everything you have ever said, texted, video
recorded, and browsed into a database that they can recall at their will should they suspect of
you anything. There isnt a checks and balances to that sort of system. Then theres the
affirmative that suggests that the government doesnt have the capacity to view everyones
information to even be able to use it for corrupt reasons, and that is probably true. I hold the
opinion that you do not grant a power that ability in the first place though, and based on articles
that Ive read in the past, I have heard that the progress for catching terrorism has lead to
almost no results.
There are a plethora of ways that I can go about researching my topic. I can use the
internet for statistics, information, quotes, and interviews. I can perform surveys to ask my peers
around campus what they think about the NSA and its fundamental role for the country. I would
ask questions such as their opinions/predispositions on the NSA and whether or not they are
convinced that the NSA is doing its job. This part of the research may be more difficult because
you would have a few certain biases. One bias could be voluntary response bias because many
people may not want to respond to the survey, so those that might actually know more or have a
strong feeling on the topic might actually respond. I will present an unbiased set of information
and let them draw their own conclusions. These public surveys are important because power
given to an institution is ultimately granted authority by a nations citizens. In an ever
complicating political sphere, it is important for a people to understand the arguments presented
about the controversial topic so that they may come to an educated conclusion about what they
feel. The choice made about how one feels about the NSA may shed light on your overall
compass on how you approach terrorism, rights, and controversy itself. Gathering information,

quotes, and statistics from the internet should be the easier part of my research due to easy
access on the web where I can compile all my findings into a document and then begin to
organize them in a flowing manner.
The approach I will make upon talking about the proposal is one that will certainly inform,
maybe even warn the public about the controversial NSAs pros and cons in a straightforward
and detailed fashion.
I am committed to this topic because of the constant research I am doing on
controversial topics in the media, the NSA being one of them. I do come with some biases that I
plan to set aside when the time comes to get down to hard research, but my end goal is the
same. Should you approve my topic, I am prepared to commit to it and execute the necessary
research tactics to come up with a respectable, informed conclusion.
Please consider my proposal to learn and research about whether or not the NSA is
serving American interests, thank you.