Blog #1
Lately there has been a recent buzz all
over the news about how our government uses the internet. The recent information that has derived from
the Edward Snowden case has shed some light on the secret operations of the
National Security Agency (NSA). This has
led to many American citizens to disapprove of the NSA’s actions; most of these
opinions have derived since the mainstream media has caused a wide spread panic
and demand for answers. However, has
anyone stopped to think that maybe the news has cut a few important details
out?
The NSA uses a program entitled
XKeyscore to help them with the day to day operations they carry out. This program essentially screens every
browsing session of all American citizens and collects information and data on
your internet usage and habits. So while
you are on your daily Facebook session, XKeyscore is busy gathering information
on what pages you “like” and other details about yourself that you are freely
releasing into the “free-for-all” world that is the World Wide Web. This data is then put into a large database
and stored there until the NSA needed to gather information. At this point the NSA would merely submit a
query into the database for certain phrases, names, or email addresses to check
for any suspect activity. According to
many sources from inside the NSA and the rest of the government, most of the
data collected by the screening program XKeyscore goes unused.
So as you can see the mainstream
media was wrong to classify the NSA as spying on the American population. The
NSA is merely monitoring the information superhighway that is the internet for
suspicious activity. However, the big
debate on how the government uses the internet should go back to how much you
as an individual believe the government should intervene to help protect the
people. Be sure to analyze the
protection versus privacy trade off as you formulate your opinions and release
your personal information when you create your next social media profile.
Well I don't really see the harm in that. I mean if it’s going to help w/ evidence etc. I see no harm. Besides people share information about themselves all the time online on social sites so what's the difference unless you are doing something YOU are not supposed to be doing that might be shameful, illegal, etc....
ReplyDeleteI don't even consider the WORLD WIDE WEB something private anyways especially when people have the skills to get access to just about anything they desire. Another thing is no matter where you live the gov't monitors aspects of people’s lives. So it's really out of people’s control. BY THE way interesting post! I liked it!!!
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DeleteI agree. If the information gathered from a person's internet searches/browsing history/social networking use helps a case, or foil a terrorist plot then it is fine with me. I know that when I post a status on Facebook it can be seen by my friends and I always like to keep in mind that stuff I post online does not just go away, it stays online. I though it was interesting that during the whole Snowden event polls found that the younger generation did not really find the government intrusion that controversial but older generations were very concerned by the government actions. I know that I am not doing anything anti-American so it doesn't concern me.
DeletePersonally speaking, if it is true that most of the data collected by the screening program XKeyscore goes unused, the government's information collecting activities won't bother me at all. Actually, I don't care even if the government do spy on me, because I won't put really private things or any illegal things online, and I don't mind some random guys in a monitoring office knowing which Facebook page I like or what comments I post online. It has no influence on my life at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm going t have to disagree with you. I feel that if the government was simply filtering through the internet, searching for suspicious activity using the same algorithms without keeping anything unsuspicious, then that would qualify as monitoring. However, they are storing all of this information and profiling citizens based on what they have gathered, whether they are suspicious or not. That is where it crosses the line into spying for me. Not to mention there is much more that they are doing, but that is beyond the scope of this article and topic.
ReplyDeleteA thought - what if websites disallowed users to type certain words or phrases? Would you rather have freedom of speech that's traceable or would you rather be restrained in order to prevent any chance of a mishap? I like Kasey and Jian's concept that they're not doing anything wrong on the web, therefore it doesn't matter. Tyler, you bring up an interesting point - what are the denotational and connotational meanings of "spying" and "monitoring"?
ReplyDeleteThe meanings for me are pretty much their definitions. Monitoring is simply watching something unfold live for suspicious activity and recording it, then letting the un-flagged data be as it was without storing it. Spying is gathering information and then sorting through it for something suspicious or unusual but still keeping all of the records, whether they be good or bad; pass or fail you could say in this sense. It may not seem like a huge difference in some aspects but when that stored data is used to profile every citizen for no reason other than to "keep tabs" it becomes a big deal and turns into spying, especially when there is zero oversight on how those files are gathered or used.
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