Government surveillance is a growing privacy issue with many pros and cons from an ethical perspective. Even though technological surveillance has stopped many crimes, there are many cases where federal agencies have taken advantage of the average American citizen. There are many types of government surveillance; all under laws that protect either the federal agencies that use surveillance or the citizens they spy on. Government surveillance involves monitoring individuals using technology. The various methods the government uses to monitor the average citizen range from tracking personal items such as phone calls, emails and web usage, as well as text messages, to tracking the community via satellites and security cameras. The government's technological surveillance initially consisted only of wiretapping of landlines. Technology has made enormous advances, making it easier and faster for federal agencies to track and monitor individuals. Major companies such as Apple and Verizon have recently provided records of cell phone usage. There was also mention of drones that could be controlled from a video game console to record certain events (Eil 1). To prevent abuse of this power, two important laws were passed to limit surveillance. The first of these laws is the Wiretapping Act of 1968. This was the first step in protecting citizens from invasion of privacy. The law states that there are five terms all of which must be violated for the act to be considered illegal. The terms are: (1) The act must be intentional; (2) The interception of the communication must take place at the same time as the transmission; (3) The interception must relate to the content of the communication; (4) This must involve any... middle of paper ...... and attempt to delay the FBI. However, when he was arrested, President Nixon resigned in a sort of appeasement to the Democratic Party. There are also reports of too much surveillance rendering information useless. According to Rachel Levinson-Waldman's report, "the intelligence community's failure to intercept the so-called 'underwear bomber' was blamed largely not on insufficient information but on an overabundance of data." (Allen 2). The underwear terrorist was a suicide bomber who nearly destroyed a Detroit-bound plane at Christmas 2006. Overall, government surveillance has many major pros and cons from an ethical perspective. Even though there are many laws to protect citizens from illegal surveillance, several scandals have occurred. However, many terrorist attacks have been stopped thanks to surveillance..