Pentagon security measures are weak. In the Washington Post it was stated that:

“The Pentagon cannot be confident that its military computer systems are not compromised because some use components made in countries with high-end cyber-capabilities, the report says. It says only a few countries, including China and Russia, have the skills to create vulnerabilities in protected systems by interfering with components.”[13]

If the government’s main base ‘Pentagon’, which is a military base for warfare can be threatened with a series of network exploitations, then what else is vulnerable? Considering how data from monitoring schemes is shared between different departments within the government, then it makes it possible for this data to be compromised if the Pentagon is vulnerable. As indicated above, the government has advanced techniques for launching cyber-attacks but not for defence against one. So, since the government is unable to defend itself against cyber-attacks, should they have monitoring schemes in place?

Conclusion

After researching and analysing both sides of the arguments on whether the government should have mass surveillance schemes, I can firmly conclude that they should not be able to monitor public data. The government has shown that they are incapable of ensuring the public that their data will always remain safe and not in the hands of unauthorised entities with ill intent. There have been many instances where government data networks have been compromised, so how can the public trust that their data will always be safe? Hence why I believe It would be safer for the public to not be monitored.