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
NSA surveillance protesters marched in Washington DC in October 2013 between us and the others But we are in almost every country in the world We are not at war with these countries The NSA had collected almost 200 million text messages each day from around the globe The NSA used these messages to gather information on the users locations contacts and financial statuses Much of the I do not want to live in a world where everything I do information collected came from and say is recorded That is people who were not under not something I am willing to suspicion of any crimes While US support or live under Edward Snowden law gives the NSA legal authority
for some types of surveillance the legal system is also intended to protect the privacy of innocent US citizens However the leaked documents suggested the NSA was breaking US privacy PRIVACY laws hundreds of times every PROTECTION year An internal NSA audit Privacy is protected by laws identified 2 776 violations of the including the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution This rules or court orders regarding part of the Bill of Rights surveillance from April 2011 prohibits the US government through March 2012 from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures of In the previous year NSA property including a person's representatives denied the home The Fourth Amendment also requires search warrants to NSA collected data on millions be based upon probable cause of Americans or even had the and to specifically describe technical ability to intercept what is to be searched or online communications in the seized The Internet age has introduced a new virtual home United States Yet according which includes cloud storage to Snowden The NSA According to the President's has built an infrastructure Council of Advisors on Science that allows it to intercept and Technology the Fourth Amendment protection of a almost everything With this person's home should logically capability the vast majority of extend to include property that human communications are is stored online However the Fourth Amendment has not yet automatically ingested without been officially interpreted to targeting If I wanted to see your protect the new virtual home e mails or your wife's phone all T have to do is use intercepts
