While some may argue that government surveillance programs are necessary to insure public safety, to allow the infringement of the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution is too high a price to pay. September 11, 2001 should not be just remembered as the beginning of America’s “War on Terrorism,” it should also be remembered as being the first “cybersecurity war.” The terrorists who had used the internet for their recruitment, and communications, on many occasions, were subsequently identified, were hacked by counter-terrorist computer specialists of the CIA and the National Security Agency. Upon October 26, 2001 the United States Congress passed the Patriot Act. This law authorized both civilian and military counterterrorism agencies the
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When you do anything on Facebook a metadata event happens, and with the help of an algorithm to get you to buy a product. The Facebook algorithm also goes through your browser's cookie which records your metadata and uses what you’ve looked at to sell you products you might be interested. James Clapper, the National Security Agency Director for President Obama assured the United States Congress on March 12, 2013, that the government was not engaged in accessing the computer records of private citizens, and there was no evidence this had ever happened. He was lying. Edward Snowden didn’t just share his information about the US government’s PRISM program with The Guardian. He posted the evidence online for all the world to see. The main on line documents proving that metadata mining by the government took place are “PRISM / US-984XN” and they detail how the NSA deputized companies to collect the metadata of their user’s. All of this was done in the name of safety after the events of September 11th. The question remains did any of this make Americans safer? President Obama claimed 54 terrorist attacks were stopped by the mass surveillance of US citizens: This is just not true. A report from the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica debunked this claim in an article written by Justin Elliott, and Theodoric Meyer. In their article: “Claim on “Attacks Thwarted” by NSA Spreads, Despite Lack of Evidence” both Mr. Elliott and Meyer found that these claims had little to no basis in reality and that NSA Chief Keith Alexander at a tech securities conference held in Las Vagus in July 2013 made this claim with no evidence. He simply stated this claim during his slide presentation, and later repeated this claim in a letter to NSA employees, which claimed that PRISM metadata surveillance “contributed to keeping the U.S. and its allies safe from 54 terrorist plots.” (Alexander). The NSA did not respond when asked to authenticate
When you do anything on Facebook a metadata event happens, and with the help of an algorithm to get you to buy a product. The Facebook algorithm also goes through your browser's cookie which records your metadata and uses what you’ve looked at to sell you products you might be interested. James Clapper, the National Security Agency Director for President Obama assured the United States Congress on March 12, 2013, that the government was not engaged in accessing the computer records of private citizens, and there was no evidence this had ever happened. He was lying. Edward Snowden didn’t just share his information about the US government’s PRISM program with The Guardian. He posted the evidence online for all the world to see. The main on line documents proving that metadata mining by the government took place are “PRISM / US-984XN” and they detail how the NSA deputized companies to collect the metadata of their user’s. All of this was done in the name of safety after the events of September 11th. The question remains did any of this make Americans safer? President Obama claimed 54 terrorist attacks were stopped by the mass surveillance of US citizens: This is just not true. A report from the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica debunked this claim in an article written by Justin Elliott, and Theodoric Meyer. In their article: “Claim on “Attacks Thwarted” by NSA Spreads, Despite Lack of Evidence” both Mr. Elliott and Meyer found that these claims had little to no basis in reality and that NSA Chief Keith Alexander at a tech securities conference held in Las Vagus in July 2013 made this claim with no evidence. He simply stated this claim during his slide presentation, and later repeated this claim in a letter to NSA employees, which claimed that PRISM metadata surveillance “contributed to keeping the U.S. and its allies safe from 54 terrorist plots.” (Alexander). The NSA did not respond when asked to authenticate