Thursday, November 21, 2013

The issues of the NSA

PRISM; the top secret NSA 20 million dollar per year surveillance program, stresses to the public that they do not go beyond what they are forced to do under law in handing over user data.

What isn't expressed to the public is the PRISM program has access that is granted to various records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more.

PRISM has direct access to providers such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.

The problem is that NSA collects this data without the companies knowledge in most cases. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, all claim that they do not provide the government with direct access to their servers, unless it is directed by court orders.

When executives from these companies found out about the claims in NSA documents they claimed to be very confused. Basically, PRISM can get around any security system.

On the other hand companies like Skype are working with PRISM. They enable PRISM to easily collect Video and Audio conversations. At the same time Skype claims to there users that they are unable to perform wiretaps.

Companies such as Microsoft claim to protect their systems from the government. In reality they are helping the NSA to get through encryption so they can intercept web chats on the new outlook.com portal. Before Microsoft's help the NSA was already able to access emails on Outlook.com.

Companies such as Yahoo and Facebook are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the NSA. These companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data the NSA provides. When founder of facebook and CEO of Yahoo tried to fight off NSA surveillance they were threatened to face jail time. Yahoo has previously even unsuccessfully sued the FISA court that provides the framework for the NSA surveillance

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Digital Story Annotated Bibliography


"National Security Agency / Central Security Service - Top Banner." The NSA/CSS Mission. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

The National Security Agency’s mission statement

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.”

When the NSA was initially formed on December 4th of 1998 The roles of this organization where;

1.      “Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze, produce, and disseminate signals intelligence information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes to support national and departmental missions;”

2.      “Act as the National Manager for National Security Systems as established in law and policy, and in this capacity be responsible to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director, National Intelligence;”

3.      “Prescribe security regulations covering operating practices, including the transmission, handling, and distribution of signals intelligence and communications security material within and among the elements under control of the Director of the National Security Agency, and exercise the necessary supervisory control to ensure compliance with the regulations.”

IN 2008 on July 31st the NSA was granted the rights by the government to;

1.      “Align EO12333 with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004;”

2.      “Implement additional recommendations of the 9/11 and WMD Commissions;”

3.      “Further integrate the Intelligence Community and clarify and strengthen the role of the DNI as the head of the Community;”

4.      “Maintain or strengthen privacy and civil liberties protections”

I chose to copy and paste this information directly from the NSA website because I want to exactly show what the NSA claims to be. I will start my digital story off including this information, most likely word for word. To give viewers who don’t have an education on what the NSA is an idea of what they are all about and what they claim to be. After my audience has an idea of the jobs the NSA are supposed to peruse I will then move into issues that people have with NSA spying.

"Three Leaks, Three Weeks, and What We've Learned About the US Government's Other Spying Authority: Executive Order 12333 | Electronic Frontier Foundation." Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 

·         The changes made to the Executive Order In 2008 allows the National Security Agency to secretly steal data from companies such as Yahoo and google. This also includes fiber optic connections between company servers at various parts around the world. This allows the NSA to obtain millions of records each month including personal data such as audio, video, text and pictures. Even if the user has a block or a password on the information and is secured by the website, the NSA can still hack their information.

·         The NSA uses the excuse of protecting us from foreign threats by collecting our address books, buddy lists, calling records, phone calls, emails, and storing everything in a database that can be viewed by the NSA. They can get away with this because they twist the rights of the Executive Order 12333. This order relies on the Executive oversight, the problem is that the Congress isn’t concerned about overseeing the actions of the NSA.

·         The NSA uses the “supposed authority the order grants to collect information” act in the EO12333 to hack into data center links, Americans address books and contacts. They can do this because they can consider this information foreign data.  The definition of this act is incredibly broad and can easily be twisted.

·         The guidelines for “Supplemental Procedures and Guidelines for Governing Metadata Analysis” allows the NSA to create secret guidelines without the approval of congress, for when and how the NSA can use Americans information outside of the oversight of the FISA court. The NSA uses metadata to create a social network of Americans for the “foreign intelligence purpose”. There are no restrictions on the use of this data.

·         The foreign intelligence definition is loose and allows the NSA to create any limit they would like on collecting internal data from Google and Yahoo. Since databases such as Google and yahoo take place overseas the NSA believes that they are entitled to presume communications through them as foreign.

Through this information I wish to give my audience revelations they can put together to show them that NSA can collect any and all data that they wish to. I wish to express to them that even innocent Americans information can be hacked by NSA without reasoning. I hope that it shows my audience that this needs to be stopped and make them wonder what else they have collected. I wish to show my audience how the NSA uses laws policies and procedures to get around the constitution.

Press, The Associated. "N.H.L. ROUNDUP; Flyers Win Their Third in a Row." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Dec. 2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

I want to inform my viewer that hacking into personal information can tell the government a lot about a person thinks like;

·         Phone and email logs

o    allow analysts to identify peoples friends and associates

o   Detect where they were at certain times

o   Gives clues to religious and political affiliations

o   Pick up sensitive information

§  Calls to a psychologist

§  Late-night messages to a spouse or partner

I want to make my audience realize that mediadata can be very revealing.

""We Don’t Live in a Free Country": Jacob Appelbaum on Being Target of Widespread Gov’t Surveillance." Democracy Now! N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.


This video and article shows a real life experience of someone who was targeted by the NSA I hope to display it to show my audience a real life experience of NSA hacking.

Basically Jacob Applebaulm life became difficult due to NSA hacking, he has been target and detained several times at airports, sometimes met at the jetway by men with guns. He was interrogated by men that wanted to know his political views. They didn’t care about terrorism or drugs which would be valid reasons for interrogation.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Digital Story Proposal


The theme of my digital story is NSA spying.  The storyline of my digital story is going to initially show pictures of people doing everyday things using technology.  

I would include cartoons

·         Someone talking on the phone

·         Someone sending a text message

·         Someone sending a picture message

·         Someone sending an email

·         Someone skyping

·         Someone typing something into a google search bar
From there each link will take you to a different story or cartoon strip of the NSA getting a hold of that personal information and storing it some even making fun of it.


A typical person may think that they have nothing to hide from the government. Most Americans aren’t terrorists or criminals. The majority of our country may not even realize that the NSA may be hacking their personal information with no criminalistics reasoning at all? Why would the situation of the NSA spying on an innocent citizen even occur?  What is so private that individuals may not want the NSA to see? Why would innocent citizens have anything to hide from the NSA?

According to David Cole “the latest revelations make it clear that we all have something to fear when government officials are authorized to intercept our most private forms of communication without the safeguards of a judicial warrant based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” You may ask yourself why would the government be interested in private forms of communication, which are not in suspicion of wrongdoing? The truth is, in fact, people working for the government are only human. Just because someone works for the NSA doesn’t mean, they are primarily worried about national security. Some of these works find a twisted humor in individual’s private lives. They hack into private conversations primarily for amusement.

Imagine the scenario of your significant other working for the International Red Cross. They have been overseas, away from home for a long period of time. You both remain faithful to each other, but soon gain strong sexual urges for the other. What do many people in these types of situations do? Communicate sexually through electronic forms of communication. Wouldn’t you be horrified if you were in this situation and realized that NSA spie’s were hacking into your conversations, listening, and making fun of something so personal, that you wouldn’t want to share with anyone but your significant other?

In July of 2008 Congress amended “FISA to authorize the NSA to conduct massive electronic surveillance with no individualized suspicion or warrant.” So long as the surveillance is “targeted at people or organizations believed to be located abroad” The purpose of this bill “is to gather foreign intelligence” The problem is “Gathering foreign intelligence” can be sickly twisted. The NSA can get around hacking basically any organization or person believed to be located abroad for any reason. The bill does not restrict the collection and sharing of private “pillow talk” by Americans overseas. It is perfectly lawful for a NSA member to hack into a private conversation for personal amusement. I believe there needs to be some sort of limitation implied when tagging and passing around conversations. If the call has nothing to do with endangering our country, it should be restricted from being tagged and passed along.

Until more restrictions are applied the NSA is able to hack into private conversations of American’s abroad. Major victims of this privacy violation are employers of the American Red cross and Doctors without borders. An anonymous linguist with the army reserves assigned to NSA told of “listening in on hundreds Americans abroad”. David Murfee Faulk, a former Arab linguist for the Navy, admits to having conversations with fellow army reserves assigned to NSA  such as; “Hey, check this out, there’s good phone sex…pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out.” They would then check it out and the phone call would consist of “some colonel making pillow talk” afterwards statements such as ‘Wow, this was crazy.’” Would be made, judging the private affairs of colonials. As you could imagine this would be very embarrassing to the American’s abroad that are being hacked. Situations like this are personal, and aren’t business of the government.

This doesn’t just happen on rare occasions either. A News story based on independent accounts of two former military intercept officers with the National Security Agency reported “that the NSA surveillance program routinely intercepted extremely private calls of Americans abroad having more to do with sex than security” This interaction gives information sharing a new meaning. The story tells how “officers would tag the conversations and pass them around to their fellow intelligence officers” It may be one thing for a NSA spy to accidently intercept a private call having nothing to do with terrorism, but the moral thing to do would be to immediately disconnect the call. As Cole says “Privacy is an invaluable aspect of our everyday lives, not just a tool for those committing or planning crimes.” Innocent rights should not be violated. “Pillow talk” becomes something that is no longer between lovers but also between whichever NSA members decide to get a laugh out of their private lives.

Vincent, Michael. "Phone Sex and National Security." Ed. Hayden. Nation. Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors, 3 Nov. 2008. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.

 

Say that you aren’t communicating in a way that you feel should be private.  Do you still have nothing to hide? “A few months ago, the Guardian showed how NSA servers can archive ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’” Take into consideration some people search for self-identity through the internet. Remember the speaker Joyce Dunce, the self-identification process of her life was very private. She mentioned how she attempted to commit suicide multiple times because she just hated who she was and had no support. If she knew that everything she did on the internet was monitored and stored in files, if she didn’t feel private and safe using the internet, she may have successfully committed suicide. To think that NSA spying could lead to death.

Do you have any embarrassing photos or videos stored on your computer? Just think, they have probably been transferred into a government database. These private videos and photos could have been viewed and shared by members of the NSA. More recently, the New York Times reported that the agency ‘has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their travelling companions, and other personal information’. Why does the government need all this information? Is it truly a necessity? It’s not

Engler, Mark. Editorial. New Internationalist Nov. 2013, 467th ed.: 33. Ebsco Host. Nov. 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Lit Reveiw Individual: Updated


In 1952 the NSA was formed as a product of the Cold war, to protect our national security. To some extent I believe that NSA is a good thing however there is a point where a line needs to be drawn between protecting America’s security and respecting the privacy our constitutional rights gives us. More innocent American’s have their privacy tapered with then criminals. I believe that most people to some extent know what NSA spying is, I just think most people are unaware of how far privacy violations are taken. Restrictions and limitations need to be implemented on the NSA. Most people might think, I have nothing to hide, so why should I worry about the government tapping into my emails, phone calls, or text messages. I must admit I do fall into this category. Even if NSA spying doesn’t concern you first-hand, it still needs to be considered as an ethical problem. We are all born equal so we need to consider those individuals that may have something to hide, and I don’t mean hiding something such as breaking the law. Use the speaking who came in just last week. She had no support in the “real world” therefore she had to figure herself out using the virtual world. She had mentioned how she was careful to find safe sites to express her identity with, to meet new people, and figure herself out. As, you can imagine this stage of her life must have been very embarrassing for her, she was afraid of who she really was and wasn’t ready to reveal her identity to the entire world. People, who are in situations such as her, completely innocent people are the ones I am referring to. I am positive she would be mortified if she had found out the government was tapping into her personal emails while she was going through this stage of life, something like this would be very embarrassing for a person which is why restrictions need to be put on NSA spying. Emails, private social media information, even things such as google searches should not be sent and stored by the government with just anyone, there needs to be some kind of lead or history for the government to hack into individuals information like this. I understand to save lives sometimes action needs to be taken quickly to find and catch criminals, there isn’t always time to go through proper documentations and filing warrants. There just needs to be a better system to getting into private information when needed. Privacy shouldn’t be monitored of individuals who have no lead.