Google Inc. E. The International News Agency Reuters

Over the last several years, cyber attacks have been continually rising. This is in response to emerging threats from rogue nations and terrorist groups. They are increasing their attacks on government, military and civilian installations. According to James Clapper (the Director of National Intelligence) these threats have become so severe. It is surpassing terrorism as the greatest challenge facing the nation. In response, the National Security Agency (NSA) began conducting surveillance on those who are involved in these activities and others which are threat to US national security interests. This program became so broad; it started continually collecting phone records and emails on ordinary Americans. This angered many, who felt that the US was acting in a way that circumvented established legal guidelines and procedures. To fully understand what is taking place requires focusing on the event, the government 's response and the ways it did / did not meet our national security goals. Together, these different elements will illustrate what occurred and the lasting impacts on everyone. (Greenwald 2014)

The NSA performed an unlawful invasion of privacy by using web encryption. Technologist, Christopher Soghoian, states that the NSA used supercomputers to gain access to encryption that provides online privacy and security. “The encryption technologies that the NSA has exploited to enable its secret dragnet surveillance are the same technologies that protect our most sensitive information, including medical records, financial transactions and commercial secrets” (qtd. in Winter). Christopher’s explanation of the encryption technologies describes how anyone could be affected by this surveillance. This is considered unlawful because the NSA hacked technologies that protect our private information. This affects the security of the nation knowing that it is possible for someone to gain access to information that people have once though were private to them. This is not the first time that the NSA has tried to gain access to private information. In fact, “For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive multipronged effort to break widely used internet encryption technologies”

This is just the beginning of new affiliated groups that are emerging and making the world a more dangerous place. Many American as still unaware of the amount of cyberspace attacks against our most sensitive networks of information and that we are suffering in the technology department in keeping up with these attacks. Even though collecting information is vital for the security of our country we have to be careful in protecting civil liberties. The citizens need to be better informed of exactly what and how data information is used. Without the proper education to the public, the government will continue to have opposition in regards to the collection of this data. Congress also needs to be less resistant to reforms that need to be implemented. The more time that goes by between events makes citizens become complacent with regards to the urgency of preventing future

Before the Obama Administration was in charge of secretly collecting phone records and accessed the internet activity of many, there was the Bush Administration. In late 2005, President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency. With this organization, they are able to monitor phone calls and emails without court permission. Just a year later, public support for the

The Uniting and Strengthening America Act by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act: this is the acronym of the generally known USA Patriot Act. The Patriot act was presented on October 26, 2001 by George W. Bush after the terrorist attack of September 11. This act was implemented with the intended end goal that by giving power to the Justice Department regarding domestic and international surveillance of electronic communications, it would help prevent incidents like September 11 from occurring again (WhatisUSApatriotAct). The Patriot Act was intended to help government agencies fight against terrorism by catching it before it happens.

Page: “No, he’s proposing that we just stop following them. Apparently the requirement to capture texts came from omb, but we’re the only org (I’m told) who is following that rule. His point is, if no one else is doing it why should we.”

The government was logging all mail for law enforcement, without a warrant, and therefore was not respecting our personal security. This revelation was discovered when a woman in Washington state got a card that was delivered to her by mistake. It was explaining to the supervisors what to have done with the incoming mail and that they needed to check

The news that the US intelligence agencies monitor the millions of Internet users has caused a huge outcry. Human rights groups along with ordinary Americans saw this issue as an attack on their civil rights and

Collecting data on everyone without a warrant or reasonable is assuming that everyone is guilty, which is just wrong. The American justice system was built on innocent until proven guilty, and it is unethical to force millions of Americans to give up their right to privacy just because of unreasonable government suspicion. In the article “Edward Snowden”, by Tim J. Watts, he discusses Edward Snowden and what he has released about National Security Agency’s surveillance of online activity. In the article, he discusses some programs that the NSA has been using in order to collect data; he says, “Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple, were said to have allowed the NSA access to their servers, including the content of user's personal communications. Other programs included surveillance of foreign embassies and mobile phone usage in other countries.” He is saying that the NSA is using companies to collect data on people’s personal conversations and messages. The NSA has absolutely no right to collect such personal information about

And with 3 billion phone calls made and 150 billion emails sent to and from the United States every day, the collection of this personal data without specifying the limits to their searches is unclear and unjust. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo among many others have recently, under protection from the Obama administration, revealed details as to the statistics of government collection. Even our nation's biggest telecom companies, AT&T and Verizon, were obliged to work with the NSA, lately disclosing information on the filtering equipment they were necessitated to use. The storage of this data for prolonged periods of time also makes these companies and their users vulnerable to security breaches such as theft and attack by hackers; for example, the cyber-security firm Trustwave discovered a server on November 24, 2013 which contained the information of over 318,000 accounts on Facebook. This breach was evidently made possible by companies storing data for an unnecessary amount of time as well as a weakened encryption standard. Both were implemented and enforced by the NSA, and the forced retention this data for over five years not only renders this metadata vulnerable to theft or misuse, but has also not been proven to be notably valuable in thwarting terrorist attacks.

Who spy or who? What is that that you call illegal methods? Don't be so dumb. It is not my fault I have a brain to make deductions no dumb human can make. Whoever is writing this emails make me wonder how much of a brain there is.

Google Inc., American search engine company founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google handled 70 percent of worldwide online search requests, placing it at the heart of most Internet users’ experience. Even though Google’s essential core business is search service, it now offers more than 50 percent Internet services and products from Gmail and online document creation to software for mobile phones and tablet computers. Google successfully maintained its core competence meanwhile expanded its business to advertisement and application three major core businesses. Its success in market levitates Google’s growth by acquiring other tech companies as a way of horizontal integration. For example, its 2012 acquisition of Motorola Mobility put it in the position to sell hardware in the form of mobile phones. Google’s broad product portfolio and size make it one of the top influential conglomerate companies in the high-tech market place. Google plays a very vital role in ICT ecosystem and it is one of the forces that enhance the growth of entire ICT ecosystem. For further illustrating the ICT ecosystem, I chose Apple and Comcast as device and Internet infrastructure firm to compare and contrast against Google.

The U.S. Government has turned the Internet into something it was never intended to be: a system for spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government

Ever since the government began to grow in size, conspiracy theorists who used to be laughed at, once believed the government is watching them through their devices (Oddly like the telescreens of 1984.). However, much to the disbelief of many, except the aforementioned theorists who saw it ahead of time. The government was and has been watching people through their messages online. The way they did this was through 9 of the most popular website firms in the nation. All of this was through a program known as PRISM. The Guardian reports, the NSA formed PRISM, a program which allowed our government to collect search history, emails, file transfers, live

Google is the most successful information technology and web search company in the world. It was founded in 1998 by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company name, Google, is a play on the word “googol” which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose this name to reflect the large amount of information on the web. The two created this search engine so that people can find anything on the web all in one place. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Now, the company is far more than a search engine website, it has grown to be a substantial collection of products and services that are