CHAPTER 1 SPIES ON THE INTERNET any Americans make phone calls send texts and e mails and search the Internet on a daily basis People tend to assume these activities are only of interest to the individuals directly involved Or at least people thought this before June 2013 That's when the news broke that the US National Security Agency NSA was spying on US citizens The news was first reported in a British daily newspaper the Guardian and soon after in the Washington Post The story describes extensive eavesdropping on communications A secret court order had required the telecommunications company Verizon to give all of its telephone data to the NSA The records were made available every day on an ongoing basis Newspapers also reported the NSA had direct access to the servers at nine Internet firms A secret program called PRISM allowed the agency to collect information from companies such as Google Microsoft Apple Yahoo and Facebook NSA officials could look at a user's search history and access the contents of e mails live chats photos videos and file transfers A protester in Germany participates in a demonstration against NSA survellance
WHAT IS PRIVACY The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology noted several areas where privacy applies One is the right to be left alone which includes keeping personal matters and relationships secret However most people also want to be able to share information selectively In other words they want to choose who sees their personal information rather than having it either completely private or else available to the general public Another privacy right is the ability to express ideas and political opinions anonymously There is also the right to make personal decisions without interference from the government or other organizations Finally privacy can involve protection from discrimination This might involve keeping characteristics such as race or gender secret so the information cannot be used to discriminate These are rights many scholars believe should exist However laws protect these rights to different degrees Later reports accused the United States of spying on European Union offices 38 foreign targets including many embassies and 35 world leaders The NSA was also accused of hacking many government and private targets in Hong Kong and mainland China The man behind the revelations was Edward Snowden a former Central Intelligence Agency CIA systems analyst who provided government records to back his claims The US government labeled him a traitor and charged him with crimes including theft of government property Some critics say his actions put the lives of American and British spies and even ordinary citizens at risk Others hailed him as a hero for exposing America's questionable spying tactics At the very least by exposing the NSA's secret operations Snowden set off a vigorous debate about the balance between security and privacy Snowden then 29 years old went into hiding overseas In October 2015
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden speaks in Russia in October 2013 the European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution encouraging the European Union to protect Snowden from prosecution as a whistle blower and a defender of human rights However the official US position remained unchanged MASSIVE DATA COLLECTION The total amount of data collected was massive In March 2013 the NSA collected 97 billion pieces of information from computer networks worldwide The main targets were Iran and Pakistan but US allies were also included An additional 3 billion pieces of data came from networks based in the United States Snowden said We hack everyone everywhere We like to make a distinction
