Monitoring U.S. citizens' phone conversations to detect potential Essay

Monitoring U.S. citizens' phone conversations to detect potential terriorist threats - Essay Example Such provisions threaten the quintessential American way of life. Liberty and freedom have always been a fundamental part of the American ethos and values. The very spirit of American political life and popular expectations simply do not allow the state to extend its sway beyond a point where it not only interferes with the personal and professional lives of people and individuals, but rather tempers with the privacy of their private and professional phone conversations. National security is really very important. However, the concerns for national security cannot be allowed to irrationality expand to a level where they start hampering the normal activities of the citizens. The act of monitoring the phone conversations of citizens is also unconstitutional and violates the Fourth Amendment rights of the citizens, which constitute a part of the Bill of Rights (Dripps, 2007). Superficially speaking, the Fourth Amendment to the constitution of the United States of America intends to prot ect the citizens from illegal search and seizures. Surprisingly, the very purpose of this Amendment was to check the abuse of general search warrants in the American Revolution (Dripps, 2007). In the historical Katz v.