By: Alexander Juha
August 2012, flying back to San Francisco, from Beirut, Lebanon. The expression of the immigration officer who processed my passport was not good. After, I was searched and questioned. The question that intrigued me the most “did you receive any special training while in Lebanon?” I did not need to ask for an explanation, I knew the answer. Two weeks prior to this my friend posted a message on my Facebook that would not sit well with anyone, especially the United States government.
An important aspect we learned in class is the collection of information. With the advancements in technology, information collection has become too easy. Anything and everything we do is now recorded and evaluated. One reason, a reason the government goes by, is trying to figure out if someone is friend or enemy. After 9/11, the gloves were off and national intelligence agencies realized they were to blame, and that they should do something about it. Since then, intelligence agencies have come up with different methods for invading the lives of its citizens. They were able to accomplish this through technology. The book Supervision, talks about surveillance and how everything we do is tracked. Gilliom and Monahan also make an argument that this change in surveillance is changing the capabilities of the government, and other groups with power. With the adoption of new surveillance capabilities, the rule and guidelines that the government goes by are being stretched, torn, and even recreated.
In an article by wired magazine, author James Bamford, talks about the Utah Data Center. The NSA in early 2011 began construction of this center, where all information can be stored and reviewed. All information, emails, phone calls, Google searches purchases made by credit card and more, will be routed to this center. According to the article, the purpose of this 2 billion dollar project is “ to intercept, decipher, analyze and store immense information of the world communication. Foreign and Domestic.” This was built to help the intelligence community fight cyber security. The intelligence community will also use this to fight terrorism. The center will house super computers that are capable of cracking any code. This includes information that has been encrypted by people for privacy protection. These computers will look for keywords and patterns used in communication. If a keyword is discovered that piece of information will be looked into, and its creator will be searched. The center will be capable of storing all the information that anyone creates. The intelligence community will essentially have a portfolio of everyone that uses communication.
This of course violates privacy, but the NSA and U.S government have found ways around that. I believe systems like this will change the rules of society. Since we live in a world of terrorism, our world of laws will change to fit the new world. I also believe this new center, and other surveillance by the government, is used like the system of stop and frisk talked of in class. The NSA will notice something about a person’s communication, that person gets flagged, and their profile searched. If it comes up clean they are forgotten, if not then more information will be collected of that person. This is what happened to me, I was flagged, searched, and once they realized I was not a threat, they let me go.
This is a very interesting post. Good job! I’m sorry you had to go through that search process. I like your connection of stop and frisk and this new government system. Although this new system is not a physical stop and frisk, I think there is still the potential for discrimination based on what time of phrases or words that are searched. The process of deciding what to search requires even more surveillance of communication between people to determine what the current and everyday lingo is.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the amount of power and control the NSA and the U.S. government have is excessive and very distressing. So, it’s not surprising that they are able to work their way around privacy infringements.
-Tiffani Toy
The intelligence should use whatever resources are available to them to prevent a repeat of what happened in September 2011. Scrutiny to any suspicious communication will ensure safety for all. The scrutinizing of an individual for the sole reason that they had visited a specific region is not reasonable since a person could visit a region that’s considered ‘safe’ and fail to be scrutinized yet they are a security threat.
ReplyDelete-Sehun Lee
Interesting that you relate the NSA's strategy of surveillance to stop and frisk. I get the gist of this but would benefit from more particular comparison.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the connection that you made to stop and frisk although the reach of the government in this instance concerns me. I understand that they are trying to prevent other terrorist attacks from happening, but I question the means of them do so. How many private conversations must they search through to find one problematic one? In the cases where they find terrorists I can see their actions as being somewhat justified but what about the regular citizen's privacy that they invade without making any security headway?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post and interesting comparison between online data gathering and scanning to stop and frisk. You are describing something where computers perform a sophisticated stop and frisk of online data that can turn into a search in real life. Of course many people will not be happy with the idea that everything they do online is watched. There will also be those who feel that this is a necessary step to take in order to prevent tragedies from occurring. The question we can ask is: is it worth it to us to have our rights infringed upon for the trade off of protection. There are many ways we can look at this. Certainly different groups will have different opinions on this so this issues is very hard to solve.
ReplyDeleteParticularly when we consider the conventions wisdom about surveillance, I think your experience at the airport highlights how changing attitudes in society may mean that we no longer adequately protected by the idea of privacy and that the definition as to what your right to privacy entails changes substantially according to context.
ReplyDeleteI think that the NSA's strategy of surveillance in this case is disconcerting but perhaps necessary. There is always the possibility that words/phrases will be taken out of context and words in jest will be misconstrued. For these reasons, I really hope that they have measures/safeguards in place to limit bias and help reach an accurate interpretation. It really boils down to whether citizens value privacy or protection to a greater extent. Very interesting topic!
ReplyDelete-Amir
Thank you for sharing, as Gilliom and Monohan have noted, surveillance is everywhere in today's modern world. I have heard that if you type the word "bomb" a significant amount of times, when texting a federal agent will come to your door. The degree of truth behind this is uncertain; it just came to mind when you said you were stopped at the airport. I agree in that in depth surveillance is needed to fight terrorism, but again when and who determines when the infiltration of privacy stops. Where does all the information the NSA and others gather go and is it ever completely erased?- Jacqueline Galeno-Escobedo
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