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TEACHER: So according to this passage, what is wiretapping? A lot of you guys have said, “What is wiretapping?” According to this passage, what’s wiretapping? Will.

STUDENT: It’s when the government listens in to international conversations.

TEACHER: Listening to international conversation between people in America and people overseas? Absolutely. Why did President Bush support secret or, a word you might need to know this week, covert wiretapping? Why did President Bush support secret or covert wiretapping? Santia.

STUDENT: ’Cause he thinks that it might protect America.

TEACHER: He thinks that it might protect America? Absolutely. How— how would it protect America? What do you guys think? Or what does it say in the passage? Alex.

STUDENT: I thought President Bush get all our phone calls or something, to anybody.

TEACHER: There’s a lot of  them. I mean, it’s— you know, you can certainly look up this information online, but uh, particularly any phone calls or emails or messages going overseas. But let me get back to the question. How would listening in on somebody’s phone call or checking their email, how might that keep America safe, as President Bush proposed? Anna.

STUDENT: Because they could be communicating with terrorists, people who wanted to attack America.

TEACHER: People who want to attack our country. There could be plans that they might discover, there could be names, dates, so on and so forth. So why do some people think that secret or covert wiretapping is a bad idea? Why are people opposed to it? Julianna.

STUDENT: Because— well, it says they think wiretapping violates a person’s right to privacy.

TEACHER: What does that mean?

STUDENT: Like, they sort of, like, violate their space. Like, they can check their emails and phone calls.

TEACHER: Yeah. We have a right to privacy, right? As US citizens. And we shouldn’t have, or it’s unconstitutional, unless there’s suspicion that you might be up to an illegal activity, we have the right to have conversations with people, without having the government check in, right? Anna.

STUDENT: It’s kind of dangerously similar to communism.

TEACHER: It’s dangerously similar to communism? How do you think?

STUDENT: Well, it’s kind of leading to the kind of government we don’t want.

TEACHER: And what kind of government is that?

STUDENT: Government that completely controls the people and that has all their rights.

TEACHER: Yeah. Absolutely. Right? In communist China, actually, a lot of websites, you can’t go on. Particularly websites that are arguing against the government of China. I remember listening to NPR, a National Public Radio story and they had a correspondent over in China. And they were both looking at the same website, but the website in China, a lot of the parts were blocked and content was actually changed, so it was actually different than the person who was looking at the same website in America because they don’t want people essentially talking against their government, right? So it’s interesting, right? It’s this balance between how do we keep our country safe, but how do we also provide the rights of privacy to our citizens, right?

 

- Teacher uses comprehension questions to generate discussion.

- Teacher leads discussion to define wiretapping.

- Teacher ssks students to connect wiretapping to the issue of security.

- Students share attitudes about privacy, security, and governmental control.

- Teacher delineates a basic trade-off: safety and privacy.

 

- introductory passage - comprehension questions - word chart

Word Posters created by students:
- wiretapping (2) - surveillance - source (3) - suspicious - notwithstanding - covert - warrantless