Digitial Story for 12-18!

Why Edward Snowden Is a Patriot

A patriot is defined as someone who feels strong support for their country. Edward Snowden claims he leaked sensitive information of the U.S. Governments public surveillance program to protect the US people for being spied on. He gave up a high paying secure job and a comfortable life style to leak this information because it caused him to have to go into hiding. This suggests Snowden cares more for the public people’s rights than for his own personal well-being. Therefore, this makes him a patriort; someone who gives up everything for the good of the U.S. people.

Digital Story Board

edward snowden trador or patroit?

Title:

Dick Cheney Calls Snowden a 'Traitor,' Defends NSA. By: Rhodan, Maya, Time.com, 10/29/2013

Database:

Academic Search Complete

http://0-web.ebscohost.com.library.jcu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=17002364-64d8-40c4-aacb-87b68abe9c1a%40sessionmgr111&vid=10&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=91845352

 

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

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 4^th 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 31^st 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.

Codes of Gender Group Digitial Story

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.

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.

Final Post Problem Statement PART 2

Explain the ethical and/or political goal(s) of your social action project. Explain its ethical and/or political significance as your collaborative considers what it hopes to achieve. (250 words)

• The first political goal our social action group hopes to achieve is the goal of getting 25,000 electronic signatures on a petition that our group creates to limit and restrict NSA spying.
•  If this is achieved then the petition we create will be sent to the government.
• The point of passing a petition like this is to inform the government of how the public feels about their initial constitutional rights violated by NSA spying. Overall if the government were to reject the petition the point would be to send a message
• Looking at the bigger picture, if our petition is passed, ultimately we will have achieved a much larger goal, that of actual initiating the start of a petition that puts restrictions on NSA spying.
• If our petition where to not reach 25,000 signatures the smaller goal to our Social Action project would simply be to raise awareness about NSA spying through both the effort our petition, and social media.
• We want to inform the public of how we feel about the government spying and persuade others to feel the same as us.
• The overall ethical goal of this project is to protect the individual’s privacy.The ethical significance to proceeding with this project is to protect our privacy rights that the constitution granted us that have been violated after George W Bush implemented the president surveillance program. It is against our rights for the government to target millions of innocent American’s privacy without a warrant. The whole point of living in America is to have your “Freedom”, which the government is specifically violating. This is why we want to limit NSA spying, we want to bring America back to it’s roots, to the great country it used to be.

NSA Spying

Since my Social Action Project Group Is petitioning against NSA spying I thought I would do some research and find out a little more about what this is.

I learned that our country uses major Mobil carriers such as AT&T and engages in surveillance of domestic communications of ordinary Americans. The first report of this by the press was not until 2005. The report revealed that the National Security Agency had been interrupting Americans phone calls and Internet communications. In 2006 it was revealed that NSA was also receiving wholesale copies of Americans telephone and communications. These surveillance activities are in violation of privacy safeguards that were established by congress in the U.S constitution. How does the government get away with this? The NSA's domestic spying program documented as the "President's Surveillance Program" was implemented by George W Bush shortly after the attacks of 9/11/2001. The program is considered by the government as classified. Unfortunately information that the government gets a hold of becomes revealed to the public. The NSA was initially authorized to conduct surveillance activities inside the united states to prevent terrorist attacks. Without warrants the NSA monitored 500-1000 people suspected to have connections to the Al Queda. The problem is  that the program targets millions of innocent Americans.

In my opinion, I think that the NSA needs to be more careful about whose information they hack. Security is important to keep our citizens safe, but its not fair to the innocent Americans who did nothing wrong to have there privacy violated.

October 11th Discussion Questions Consumerism, self-creation and prospects for a new ecological consciousness

Do you think that a production-based or construction-based society is better? How?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a production-based society?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a consumption-based society?

What social changes have shifted production-based to construction-based societies?

Do you think that the changes caused by the shift in society are negative or positive? How so?

As a consumer do you think you will ever have everything you want? Will you ever be satisfied?  Why/How?

How do you create your own personal identity?

What are your beliefs on power in direct relationship to consumption? Do you think the more you consume the more powerful you become?

How should we deal with growing piles of waste?

How could we limit consumption to save the environment?

What does the emergency of economical consciousness depend on?

What authority do you think that institutions have that is hidden?

Social Action Project Introduction

• Discuss the broader digital media and social justice topic, issue or cause that your social action project will respond to? What is the ethical, historical and/or political significance of this topic, issue or cause? (250 words)

My suggestion for a topic on the social action project is digital waste. I would like to inform the public about “recycling” and where our digital waste is really going. I’d like to inform them that most major recycling companies unsafely ship E-waste away for others to deal with instead of ensuring it is safely recycled in their own hands. I would like to show them what wastelands build up to become and show the unhealthy conditions undeveloped countries are forced to live in. I think the majority of society has no clue that recycling centers simply label digital waste as donations and then ship it all away overseas to undeveloped nations. I for one was shocked when I enrolled in this class and listened to the first speaker inform us of this issue. I became more disgusted as I learned more and more about it throughout the course and I would like to raise awareness.

The ethical significance this topic has is in my opinion, is that morally the whole concept is just not right. We have an advantage over these undeveloped nations. We are naturally born with more in a better living environment. They can’t choose the country that they were born into. We are born with privileges they don’t have. We should be helping them to live a better life and have better amenities; technology medication and clean water. Instead we trick them by telling them that we are donating electronics to help advance their nations technologically. We should genuinely be making donations that can help them advance, instead of donating garbage to them that make their living conditions worse. This would be the ethical thing to do. On top of it all, even though they are the ones suffering now in the long run we all live on the same earth and our great-great grandchildren will be dealing with even a bigger issue right alongside of theirs. We need to fix the issue now, invest in research and come up with a better solution before its too late instead of taking the easy way out.

• Describe the type of social action project that you have identified.  Offer examples of how it has been used in the past. Why does this type of project form an appropriate response to the specific topic, issue or cause introduced above? (250 words) 

Produce a documentary, I saw the documentary supersize me and immediately knew that this would be a good way to get a message across to the public. I was forced to watch the video three times throughout school years and it really put an impact on my food choices and how I viewed fast food. I next related to the Kony 2012 video. I was reminded about in class Wednesday, and this is when I initially began to realize that producing a documentary would be very affective. Kony 2012 was very informative and influential. I think that producing a YouTube video that could possibly go viral is one of the easiest ways for a class such as ours to get a message across to a wider public.

Getting the message out about where our digital waste is going would be easy to incorporate in a video format. In the background we could have a catchy sound playing to keep the listeners attention. We could create animations to over-exaggerate waste dumping and transport. We can animate young boys burning toxic materials and even younger boys walking around with magnets to pick up scrap metals left behind.  Another thing we can animate is the health affects. We can show people living in that environment getting sick. At the end we should show real pictures of actual digital wastelands to get the message thickly across the viewer’s heads.

After the Video is created we could share the link on every social network everyone in the class has. We can message our friends and ask them to do the same. We can then publicly post the video to popular pages and blogs. In comment sections we can comment the link to this video. I think if the video is posted by everyone in the class it will get more views and raise more awareness then we even realize.

 

Phthalates

1.       Where and how is it mined?

a.       There are many different types of phthalates found and mined in different places, but they can be released from a product by heat agitation.

 

2.       What is the environmental impact of the mining? Is it regulated?  If so, by whom?

a.       Phthalates Dangers are so well-documented that action is being taken against them.

b.       They are being phased out by many products in the United States, Canada and the European Union.

c.       Health concerns due to legal provisions and growing environmental awareness, producers are increasingly forced to use non-phthalate plasticizers.

 

3.        What are the human health concerns when used to manufacture consumer electronics?

a.       Interfere with the production of male reproductive hormones

b.       Lower testosterone levels

c.       Decreased sperm counts

d.       Lowers sperm quality

e.       Malfunctions in the male reproduction tract

f.        Hormone changes

g.       Birth Defects

h.       Breast Cancer

i.         Prostate/ Testicular Cancer

 

4.       What documented health impacts are associated with its de-manufacturing?

a.       Phthalates are easily released into the environment because there is no covalent bond between the phthalates and plastics in which they are mixed. As plastics age and break down, the release of phthalates accelerates.

b.       Because phthalate plasticizers are not chemically bound to PVC, they can easily leach and evaporate into food or the atmosphere. Phthalate exposure can be through direct use or by indirect means through leaching and general environmental contamination.

c.       Because phthalates are not chemically bound to products, they easily migrate or off-gas, especially with heat.

 

5.       What purpose does this compound serve in digital electronics?

a.       Phthalates are esters of phthalic acid they are mainly used as a substance that are added to plastic to increase flexibility, transparency, durability and longevity. Phthalates are used in computers to make the plastics, more specifically cables, used in them more flexible softer and durable.