These were not the only reasons this program was defunded. This program simply was not successful in stopping terrorism. Steven Levy editor of Newsweek wrote an article claiming "TIA had scary privacy implications." He adds that they could basically look through any sort of personal information through this program. They could go through call logs and your credit cards which are both very private things to the average person. It had no limitations of the personal things they could investigate. He also reports that even though this program was shut down, they still are using this kind of technology to mine people and its legal "as long as it isn't used on Americans inside these borders" (Levy. Even on tracking people outside of the American borders there have not been many terrorists found due to data mining. If this would have been successful we would have many examples on terrorists found because new technology. However, the government still believes this could stop terrorism. .
Recently the government has been using this data mining tactic and many of us do not know how they are using it and what the regulations that go with it are; therefore, the citizens are being completely uninformed and that is why many are causing such an uproar about it. Americans today get very defensive about what the government can see and how much the government controls our lives. It is scary to people that we have no idea how much the government really knows about our lives. It is putting many Americans in fear. Others are having many different emotions about data mining. Many are becoming angry that they could possibly be data mined. It is not ethical to track the information of citizens without informing the individuals first. After learning how much information the government is capable of viewing, people should be more cautious about what they do through technology devices. .
Although many argue that data mining invades our privacy, it could be a useful resource to help track down terrorists.