Fbi surveillance

FBI Surveillance
In January 2016, the FBI issued new guidelines to high schools across the nation. These new guidelines instruct teachers and administrators to report any unusual behavior from students to the FBI. Administration is told to look out for behavior such as criticizing the government, using “unusual language” or “private messaging apps” and encryption (“going dark,” in FBI speak) to playing online games outside of school. They say any of these activities could indicate that “someone plans to commit violence.” They also say to watch for kids who are poor, are immigrants, or who talk about travel to "suspicious" countries. These new guidelines are very close to an unpopular British surveillance program known as Prevent. This program monitored Muslim communities and individuals. The FBI's surveillance program will target high school kids who they say are a "hotbed of extremism." The FBI describes these young extremists as "ideal targets for recruitment." Although these vague descriptions could apply to any individual, the program seems to target Muslims and those with Islamic backgrounds. The guidelines repeatedly focus on "immigrants" and "diaspora" populations as well as those with different cultural and religious beliefs and backgrounds. The sole purpose of the program is to prevent violent extremism in high schools.

Censorship
It's obvious that the government doesn't want anyone to know about this since this story has not been covered in any news. Not one major news company has produced any information on this story. This entire story has been censored and kept out of the media. There are a few independent news sources who have produced material on the subject and one article from the Huffington Post, other than that is has been kept silent.

The children are most affected in this issue. While the government thinks they are benefiting by marking potential threats, it only feeds more into this so called extremism. This is a prime example of positive feedback meaning, because the government is saying these kids are potential threats based on certain characteristics and backgrounds, they will become those threats because that’s what they’re being told they are.

Ethics
The ethical issue is this case is the fact that the government is committing blatant racism. They make it seem like any child could be a potential threat when really they are only targeting a certain race and religion. The other ethical dilemma is having teachers and staff notify authorities of suspicious behavior. Instead of talking to a kid and finding out more information, they may just start reporting everyone to the FBI thinking they have vicious intentions. Although it is true that younger kids are more prone to adapting such characteristics of violence it is a rare case. Kids go through many different phases trying to figure out who they are and to label them as threats at such a young age is only feeding the fire. The fact that they are trying to target these kids just makes it more of a problem than if it were to just be left alone.
An ethical solution to the problem would be to release this story in the press and news. Let people know what is happening and why. These kids, and especially their parents, deserve to know what is happening to them and should be educated on it. The FBI has a whole manual on the guidelines, but why are they not letting people know it’s available? This kind of censorship is unnecessary and shouldn’t happen.
Sources
http://projectcensored.org/14-fbis-new-plan-spy-high-school-students-across-country/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/uncle-sam-wants-you----to_b_9689456.html

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