Tracking the American Surveillance Saga
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, the latest series of explosive disclosures by the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald & Co. should serve as an eyeopener on the surveillance and snooping tactics employed by the USA's National Security Agency ever since the 9/11 attacks, all thanks to Patriot Act. NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily screamed the headline on June 6th. According to a top secret court order issued in the month of April, the NSA was given unlimited powers to obtain telephonic data (or 'metadata' as being put) for a three-month period ending July 19.
Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication. Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.
The episode is akin to a similar incident reported by USA Today back in 2006 that the NSA, then under Bush administration, was collecting phone records of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth customers to identify potential terrorist activity.
The next bombshell was about the NSA Prism program tapping in to user data of Apple, Google and others, a more worrisome revelation considering the amount of time we spend online these days. The previously undisclosed covert program (now confirmed) called PRISM allowed the NSA to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats from various tech giants like Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook. That all these internet behemoths were based in the US provided NSA with a 'home-field advantage' according to the leaked top secret PowerPoint presentation, and calls the PRISM program to be "one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA".
While all the companies bluntly denied 'direct' cooperation with NSA on this matter, Facebook and Microsoft have gone on damage control mode to reveal the number of user data requests made by the US government. Facebook received 9,000 - 10,000 requests for user information covering 18,000 - 19,000 accounts, with Microsoft getting 6,000 - 7,000 data requests concerning close to 31,000 - 32,000 accounts in the second half of 2012. Google has categorically stated that it provides data only on a request basis and has called for more transparency in the process.
Apple is the latest firm to publish details of data requests from US authorities. In a note posted on its website, the electronics giant reaffirmed its commitment to user privacy at the same time disclosing that it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data from December 2012 to May 2013. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, it added.
But that was not all. Spying got a whole new meaning when the existence of a powerful data mining tool called Boundless Informant, the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data, was made known. The leaked documents reveal that 97 billion pieces of intelligence information was gathered from computer networks worldwide over a period of 30 days ending last March. Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.
Then came to light the whistleblower himself; a 29-year old contract worker for the NSA: Edward Snowden. The identity was revealed by the newspaper at his request. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said. Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."
He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me." He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
Currently residing in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden joins the list of whistlesblowers like Bradley Manning, who is currently on trial for leaking the horrifying details associated with America's war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. "A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor," says Snowden on the rationale behind his decision.
NSA director General Keith Alexander's claims that the surveillance helped foil 'dozens of terror events' weren't enough to assuage the criticism the agency has garnered. Senate members of the intelligence committee Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have demanded conclusive proof that these programs indeed thwarted terrorist attacks against the nation.
Erosion of user privacy on the Internet is nothing new. Our web browsing activities, social network updates, emails, chats may all be harmless from a counter-terrorism point of view, but as Daniel Ellsberg puts correctly in his opinion piece this wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect. Edward Snowden has broken the law no doubt. But you cannot ignore the courage of men like him and Manning who have put the well-being of society ahead of their personal lives. A big thank you!
The whole story: The NSA Files, The Guardian
Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication. Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.
The episode is akin to a similar incident reported by USA Today back in 2006 that the NSA, then under Bush administration, was collecting phone records of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth customers to identify potential terrorist activity.
The next bombshell was about the NSA Prism program tapping in to user data of Apple, Google and others, a more worrisome revelation considering the amount of time we spend online these days. The previously undisclosed covert program (now confirmed) called PRISM allowed the NSA to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats from various tech giants like Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook. That all these internet behemoths were based in the US provided NSA with a 'home-field advantage' according to the leaked top secret PowerPoint presentation, and calls the PRISM program to be "one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA".
While all the companies bluntly denied 'direct' cooperation with NSA on this matter, Facebook and Microsoft have gone on damage control mode to reveal the number of user data requests made by the US government. Facebook received 9,000 - 10,000 requests for user information covering 18,000 - 19,000 accounts, with Microsoft getting 6,000 - 7,000 data requests concerning close to 31,000 - 32,000 accounts in the second half of 2012. Google has categorically stated that it provides data only on a request basis and has called for more transparency in the process.
Apple is the latest firm to publish details of data requests from US authorities. In a note posted on its website, the electronics giant reaffirmed its commitment to user privacy at the same time disclosing that it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data from December 2012 to May 2013. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, it added.
But that was not all. Spying got a whole new meaning when the existence of a powerful data mining tool called Boundless Informant, the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data, was made known. The leaked documents reveal that 97 billion pieces of intelligence information was gathered from computer networks worldwide over a period of 30 days ending last March. Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.
Then came to light the whistleblower himself; a 29-year old contract worker for the NSA: Edward Snowden. The identity was revealed by the newspaper at his request. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said. Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."
He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me." He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
Currently residing in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden joins the list of whistlesblowers like Bradley Manning, who is currently on trial for leaking the horrifying details associated with America's war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. "A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor," says Snowden on the rationale behind his decision.
NSA director General Keith Alexander's claims that the surveillance helped foil 'dozens of terror events' weren't enough to assuage the criticism the agency has garnered. Senate members of the intelligence committee Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have demanded conclusive proof that these programs indeed thwarted terrorist attacks against the nation.
Erosion of user privacy on the Internet is nothing new. Our web browsing activities, social network updates, emails, chats may all be harmless from a counter-terrorism point of view, but as Daniel Ellsberg puts correctly in his opinion piece this wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect. Edward Snowden has broken the law no doubt. But you cannot ignore the courage of men like him and Manning who have put the well-being of society ahead of their personal lives. A big thank you!
The whole story: The NSA Files, The Guardian
Comments
Post a Comment