A lot of people use facebook to link to sites to express their opinions. I do this as well, but recently i had to write a paper on the NSA, cited and sourced from scholarly journals and reputable articles. I think it is an okay read. I offer it to you my friends to read and offer your criticisms. please forgive any formatting errors, as facebook never posts my long messages with tabs in them correctly. Ian Ingold Ms. Nylander 1C: Critical thinking M/W NSA: Dirty Deeds Done At A Premium On December 28, 2012 President Barack Hussein Obama renewed into law the FISA Amendments Act Re-authorization Act of 2012(Nicks), Thus extending the life support on this outdated and oppressive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. By continuing the life of this legal quagmire the President had given direct approval for wiretapping into the phones, computers, and other electronic communication media of United States citizens without a warrant. Although President Barack Obama is not the creator of this bill, he is only one in a line of presidents who have passed the law since its origination in 1978. Signers of amendments to this bill include presidents Jimmy Carter and George bush(Nicks). The FISA bill allows agencies with power like that of the currently existing NSA to exist. It is important to clarify here that the NSA and other such foreign intelligence collecting agencies must exist. They are necessary to keep the channel of American knowledge of foreign actions open for scrutiny of said actions. This argument seeks no more to stifle American foreign intelligence than it serves to teach one how to cook rice. With the powers of the government being separated to secure the necessity of a non-tyrannical state, one of these powers that extends to the president includes control over the acquisition and processing of foreign intelligence. This includes gathering data from areas outside of both the continental and non continental United States, as well as its sovereign territories, such as Peurto Rico. This argument is not intended to present the idea that the Presidents powers of foreign data collection are unconstitutional. Those rights are guaranteed to the holders office. However, these powers do not give the president any authority over homeland data collecting(Electronic Surveillance). The FISA bill is a slippery slope that has snowballed in power and increasing authority with each president that has signed it. By extending the power of espionage into the American homeland, it is proof that the bill is a privacy violating power grab. Some of the more direct problems caused by the NSA are the harm they are doing to the world economy, especially that of America. This is occurring due to NSA manufactured hacking workarounds. Companies using banking software altered by the NSA are less likely to be trusted by investors that their financial and personal data are in fact secure. Foreign investors may see the NSAs tampering as a sign that now is not a good time to invest in the American economy(Hill). Foreign and domestic investment is a necessary keystone in American prosperity that should not be chipped away by those who feel that safety supersedes freedom in value or practicality. Anything other than freedom from unreasonable search and inspection is a violation of the fourth amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”(U.S. Const., amend. IV. ) The constitution does not allow for actions such as random word collection, key word voice recording, and meta-data acquisition on those for whom it is not warranted. As such, the need for severe pacification of the NSA in internal data gathering must be instituted, and their powers of American citizen surveillance reneged in its totality. The changes proposed are this: Remove all NSA surveillance on American citizens, Require improved transparency in regard to what kind of data is being collected and where the data is coming from, remuneration for the victims, and finally removal of all NSA altered software which contains purposefully applied workaround coding inserted in American software that allows simplified hacking into company and citizen software(Lemos). None of these changes alter or redefine in any way the Presidents already existing and constitutionally guaranteed power to determine what policies on foreign data collection are enacted into law. Seeing that nothing constitutional is being altered by this change, it is a logical conclusion that the policies that are here proposed to be changed may exist outside of the protection of the constitution, thus making the aforementioned policies themselves unconstitutional. This proposed change to current status quo in data collection is not so much a “change” but more, a necessary return to constitutional law. The power to collect data should be allowed only on foreign locations, never domestic. A policy of transparency in foreign data collection must therefore be established. For example, thanks to a classified documentation leak by Edward Snowden it was revealed that the National Security Agency paid several million dollars to companies relating to domestic and international communications(Lenzner). Multinational brand names that were a part of the data buy-off include AT&T, Yahoo, Verizon, Sprint, Google, and Facebook among others. The companies range in product from search engines to e-mail, phone service, video hosting, and perhaps most personally invasive of all: social networking(NSA Wiretapping). This creates a secondary market that makes it profitable for companies to trade the data of their customers for a larger stock value(Hill). This tactic has been applied by companies before in the form of marketing, but it is far less sinister for a website to know whether it should advertise high heel shoes or role playing games to its viewer(Liang-Yi). The darker side of this whole practice is that protections are provided by the government to these companies that they need not, and in some cases are not allowed, to tell their customers and clients about these data purchases. Changes to current policy must include that companies are not only allowed to reveal to their customers that they have complied with these regulations, but must be required to reveal to all customers if their accounts were or are being monitored. After these changes are implemented all innocent American citizens who were unwarrantably monitored should be remunerated for the unconstitutional activity they were subject to. As of right now this would be impossible due to the supreme courts ruling offering the NSA and complying companies retroactive immunity in regards to civil cases for citizens whos rights were violated(Electronic Surveillance). This remuneration is not unwarranted as over 100 million tax payer dollars have been spent so far to create these spying accounts. An excellent example of the obese cost of this spying is shown by Verizon, which charges 324 dollars to activate voice and meta-data recording on an account, and another ten dollars a day to continue monitoring the account(Lenzner). Victims should receive in return at least three fourths return on this profit made off of them, with the other quarter remaining with the company to help cover costs of the forced compliance they were subjected to. Furthermore, the supreme court must redetermine the retroactive immunity from civil law suits they have guaranteed to the NSA so that companies can recoup their labor losses through litigation. One of the most overlooked yet still immensely important issues caused by the NSA is the lack of transparency in just what programs the agency has altered to be acceptable for their hacking workarounds. These workarounds, also known as back-doors are a daunting problem because of the susceptibility to cyber attack created when the program is not fully protected from all interference. This grants the NSA as well as any hacker intuitive enough to crack or decipher these available points of attack access to the compromised files. The problem with leaving intentional “open doors” is the dismaying lack of defense from hackers it causes the site and its users. This also inhibits security programming from functioning properly and fully protecting those who entrust their data and personal information in return for the assurance that they will be safe in this disclosure. All past and future activities conducted by the NSA can and must be released for public inquiry and scrutiny in the wake of these constant scandals. In a kowtow to public demand the NSA has in fact created an account with the online social networking site Twitter, supposedly to create more transparency with what the agency is doing. This is almost hypocritical due to the fact that Twitter was one of the companies hacked by the NSA, before later being paid off(Lenzner). The practice of including any kind of government workaround in security, banking, and any other software needs to be halted immediately and all compromised programming needs to be disclosed to the public and restored to a state in which there is no way for any government agency to easily hack into the affected software. With its repeated violations of the constitution, constant scandals, and beguiling intransparency the NSA is in drastic need of a complete power and staff restructuring. The agency must have their unjust powers of domestic surveillance stripped, reveal their past actions, and alter all future policies to function in a constitutional manner. This is the only way that the NSA can function in a manner that does not threaten the security of American citizens. In a world that has seen the horrors of terrorism and the fear which it can create, one must always keep a sharp eye and open mind for when the protectors begin to use the same fear utilized by their enemy. Freedom cannot and must not ever take a backseat to security or safety. The constitution, founded and based in freedom and opportunity cannot thrive in the presence of over controlling regulation. With the NSA continuing business as usual individual rights continue to be violated every minute of every day they collect their privacy violating meta-data. With the damage to United States businesses and the distrust in American internet security it is blatantly apparent that change must come to the NSA and related legislation regarding the internet and user privacy. It was once said that space was the final frontier, but even after space was reached a whole new frontier was born with the internet. And in the minds and writings of millions of people who seek to reach out to something new and free the internet is a vast world of knowledge. The internet offers us a journey into a world of discovery that should not be marred by regulation and secret policing but instead protected. Electronic Surveillance – Congress Grants Telecommunications Companies Retroactive Immunity From Civil Suits For Complying With NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program-- FISA Amendments Act Of 2008”, Pub. L. No. 110-261, 122 Stat. 2436. Harvard Law Review 122.4 (2009): 1271- 1278. Business Source Elite. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Hill, Kashmir. How The NSA Revelations Are Hurting Businesses. Forbes.Com (2013): 9. Business Source Elite. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Hill, Kashmir. NSA Does For Cross-Border Surveillance What Gmail Does To Place Ads. Forbes.Com (2013): 14. Business Source Elite. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Lemos, Robert. NSA Circumventing Much Of The Internets Encryption: Reports. Eweek (2013): 3. Business Source Elite. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Lenzner, Robert. ATT, Verizon, Sprint Are Paid Cash By NSA For Your Private Communications. Forbes.Com (2013): 4. Business Source Elite. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Liang-Yi, Li-Yi, and Chen Gwo-Dong. A Web Browser Interface To Manage The Searching And Organizing Of Information On The Web By Learners. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society 13.4 (2010): 86-97. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Nicks, Denver. Two Bills Offer Different Visions Of NSA Reform. Time.Com (2013): Business Source Elite. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. This Article Nsa Wiretapping Controversy.Case Western Reserve Journal Of International Law 37.2/3 (2006): 509-535. Business Source Elite. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 04:04:18 +0000
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