The Surveillance Programs : Prism, More Insight Into Fisa, And Xkeyscore

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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was originally enacted to protect entities from abuse of surveillance for national security reasons. FISA contains policies associated with the process of gathering foreign intelligence by the intelligence community for national security reasons (Addicott & McCaul, 2008, p. 46-47). FISA also consisted of a secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which had eleven unnamed federal judges who issued warrants regarding surveillance or searches for the intelligence community, and a court review board, which consisted of three federal judges who reviewed the actions of the secret court. After the passing of the Patriot Act by the Bush Administration, the NSA was essentially given full authority to collect information on citizens without a warrant, thereby circumventing the FISC, and Bush fully defended the NSA, stating “‘The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time.’” (Schwartz 2009

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”

The NSA PRISM program allowed US Intelligence Services to collect private information of users utilising services such as Facebook and Gmail in order to guard its countries interests.

Over the past few years, government surveillance in the United States has become a widely debated issue with two completely different sides. The National Security Agency, a government agency known for it’s efforts in spying and surveillance, has been at the center of this issue since it’s founding in the 1950’s. The Cold War had just begun and the United States government was doing anything they could to find potential terrorists and communists. In fact, many famous people including Einstein were being spied on by the government to find citizens with potential ties to the Soviet Union. (New York Times - New Details Emerge from the Einstein Files; How the FBI Tracked His Phone Calls and His Trash) As the cold war came to an end in the early 90’s, NSA spying seemed to come to an end as well.

This justifies the previous claims that internet protection should be included in the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. A few years ago, a former employee of both the CIA and NSA, Edward Snowden, became a whistleblower as he leaked information pertaining to the illicit activities of the NSA. One of the NSA programs that Snowden informed the public on was called XKeyscore, which allowed members of the NSA to ""search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets,"" (Business Insider). The government having the ability to investigate the internet content of ordinary citizens, in any fashion similar to that of XKeyscore, is unjust and denies American citizens their rights. The uproaring havoc of the public following the Snowden leaks reflects how Americans today, as a whole, feel about their internet content being watched by the government. Recently, the possibility of the FCC removing net neutrality concerned many citizens, afraid they were possibly going to lose their internet privileges. While this does not directly correlate to monitoring the internet, it goes to show that many Americans do not wish to have a reduction in their internet

He revealed through this program, telecommunication companies like Verizon and AT&T would hand over information to the government to analyze phone calls. They would analyze things like the duration and location of the calls, telephone numbers, and serial numbers on the phone. Through the PRISM program, Internet programs would hand over information to the government who would then have access to emails, videos, photos, and chat services (Clobes). Since his release of the information, Edward Snowden fled to Russia and is currently living there. He faces two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property (Finn and Horwitz). Many people think these surveillance programs are unconstitutional and are breaking the Fourth Amendment, which says people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and

On June 6, 2013, The Guardian published a story about the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM (Greenwald and MacAskill 2013). The story was based on documents leaked by one of the most successful whistle-blowers in American history, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents that Snowden has released up to this time have shown the NSA to be heavily engaged in the collection of personal Internet activity, bulk collection of telephone "metadata," and other forms of surveillance that have brought U.S. intelligence practices into question.

Rand Paul, of the Wall Street Journal states, “How many records did the NSA seize from Verizon” (Paul)? Verizon is an enormous phone company that covers more than 308 million people. All of the phone information secured in the Verizon Company, is now being monitored and viewed by the US Government, which was initially kept secret from the people, under code name PRISM (Greenwald). The information under this code name was then leaked by a former NSA worker. Unfortunately, just like the book Big Brother’s Watching, it is the U.S Government that is conducting domestic surveillance on Verizon. Companies like Verizon, can’t simply shut off the eyes the government and they also cannot protect their users, now violated, Fourth Amendment rights. The use of domestic surveillance by the American government must not be implemented, in order to prevent the violation of American’s Fourth Amendment right, to ensure privacy for the American people, and due to American’s distrustful views toward domestic surveillance and the NSA. The U.S government should not monitor its people, and should not violate their rights to privacy.

The terrorist attack on September 11th by the Islamic group al-Qaeda prompt President Bush on October 26, 2011, to sign the Patriot Act into law with the help of Congress. This act was created to take measures to protect the citizens, by bringing in more troops and military units. Giving law enforcement more power to prevent and detect terrorism. The power to use surveillance, wiretaps and conduct investigations. This law still has citizens concern with their civil liberties and data privacy.

Ever since the American public was made aware of the United States government’s surveillance policies, it has been a hotly debated issue across the nation. In 2013, it was revealed that the NSA had, for some time, been collecting data on American citizens, in terms of everything from their Internet history to their phone records. When the story broke, it was a huge talking point, not only across the country, but also throughout the world. The man who introduced Americans to this idea was Edward Snowden.

This act was created in 1978. It proposes methods for gaining judicial permission in order to carry out physical and technological search for a person, who might be a terrorist threat for USA, on behalf of a foreign power.

George Zimmerman committed murder, and was acquitted of charges by a jury, as there was not enough evidence to prove that Zimmerman had not acted in self-defense. Zimmerman walked away from the trial without any repercussion, and much of the country was outraged. But what if Zimmerman had been wearing Google Glasses, or what if Martin had been using his phone? Both devices have the capability to record events. Either of those could have been used as evidence against Zimmerman, and might have been enough for the jury to find him guilty of murder. Many Americans find flaws with the NSA's (National Security Agency) cell phone, satellite and camera monitoring. Though most people despise the program, the NSA's monitoring power needs to be raised. With the ability to more thoroughly investigate crime scenes though electronic methods, the NSA could help catch local criminals, and could also investigate terrorist attacks on the country more thoroughly. In the end, it comes down to a simple choice, privacy or safety. Which is more important, a small amount of privacy on electronic devices, or the safety of the entire country?

After 9/11, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which amended FISA and significantly enhanced the power it has. Now the agents like FBI only needs to show that “a significant purpose” of domestic surveillance is to gather foreign intelligence. And from what we searched in proceeding cases, the FISA court who rules on government requests for surveillance of foreigners has approved nearly every one of the surveillance orders that have come before the court, and their rulings are classified. So to some extent, we can say that these surveillance laws are being abused.

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