By: David Jackson
With the advancement of technology
putting everyone, from grandparents to children in elementary school,
in possession of a smart phone, email address, computer, iPad etc.
privacy becomes a major issue. While millions of Americans are
texting, emailing, calling friends or family or even going to the
store, they would like to think that this is done so in privacy.
However this is not the case.
The National Security Agency (NSA) in
terms of budget and personnel is one of the United States
Government’s largest intelligence organizations. The NSA operates
under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense and reports to
the Director of National Intelligence. The amount of tax dollars used
to fund the NSA and the personnel of the NSA makes it clear the
objectives of the agency are important to the government. The clear
mission of the NSA was supposed to be of gathering foreign
intelligence, but recent event have shifted from foreign to domestic
intelligence.
Big Brother is a term used to describe
a person or organization exercising total control over people’s
lives. To many of Americans the term “Big Brother” fits NSA, who
in June of 2013 was exposed by The Guardian, for requiring Verizon
(one of Americas largest phone providers) who were required in a top
secret court case to on a day to day basis, hand over information of
all telephone calls in its systems, both in the United States and
Other Countries. This means that all phone calls are recording
regardless even if the people on the phone isn’t suspected of wrong
doing (yes even your calls to dear old Grandma). The numbers of both
parties on a call are handed over, including the location data,
unique identifiers (Twitter, Kik, Instagram handles, with respected
emails.), along with the time and duration of all the calls. The
leaked government documents of June, were just the tip of the
iceberg; and of one we have yet to learn the full truth about.
President Bush was asked about the
possibilities of the government spying (made easier by the Patriot
Act.), in which he ensured the American that “The Privacy of
ordinary American citizens will be fiercely protected.” However, as
we continue to get new leaks of the NSA spying on us “ordinary”
citizens; Bush statements couldn’t be so far from the truth. The
earliest of the leaks from NSA, go back as far as 2006, the same time
the government spying (Big Brother) was bought into question, yet
President Obama and his administration are the blame for the NSA’s
actions.
As of today October 4th,
2013, there have been an total of 9 know leaks of the NSA, causing
employees of the agency to resign, and also other government
officials coming forth and saying that they had no idea of the spying
going on here in the United States. The leaks include the following:
“NSA PRISM program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and
other”, “Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages”,
“Live chat with Edward Snowden”( a former CIA and NSA employee
who leaked most of the NSA documents discussed in this article),
“GCHQ taps fiber-optic cables for secret access to world’s
communications”, “NSA tool collects nearly everything a user does
on the internet”, “NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per
year”, “US and Uk spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the
internet”, and finally “NSA can spy on smartphone data”.
The news of these leaks is having an
impact on some Americans future electronic purchases; such as the new
iPhone 5S, released a few weeks ago, which contains a fingerprint
scanner inside the phone for the user’s privacy. This has raised
flags as to what will happened to the users fingerprints once stored
in apples database, especially since Apple is one of the company that
has turned over information to the NSA. Another Company whose name
was mention with the NSA is Microsoft whose hot product of this
holiday season is the Xbox One, a video game system that comes with
an HD camera cable of going on the internet, making Skype calls,
powering on from recognizing the users face and remembering the users
voice. The Xbox One was originally supposed to be an “always on”
device, meaning that device would always have to be connected to the
internet to work and the devices camera always connected and working.
This sent customers into a rage causing Microsoft to change its
policy and allow for the device to work without being connected to
the Internet and the camera to be disconnected.
The spying the government was been
doing on the citizens of the United States is a direct violation of
their rights, and with these recent leaks is proven to be occurring
on a level no one in their wildest dreams could have ever imagined.
Here is some
videos explaining the Spying going on today, as well as the original
leaks that took place from June 2013 up until today.
NSA LEAKS 2013
Rep. Huelskamp on Government
Surveillance 2013 VIDEO
CNBC’s Big Brother Big Business Links
VIDEO
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
This screams foul play. If Apple users can Already be tracked via their IPhone's locating services and now can have their finger print saved via the 5's access feature, then it seems pretty evident that there is some connection between apple and the government's invasion of our privacy. " CONSPIRACY ALERT"
ReplyDeleteThis is a very informative post David. I appreciate you shedding light on these dishonest, unethical practices of the NSA for our peers. I have been reading about US government conspiracy theories for a couple years now and I have been wanting more of my peers to take an interest in informing themselves. The supporting videos are spot on as well. Great post!
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