After watching the videos from Frontline and CitizenFour I was very surprised. I remember years ago when this incident first took place but I was never sure about exactly what information Snowden released. I can personally see myself on both sides of the argument depending on each “feature” that the NSA can use to spy on individuals. Overall, I enjoyed learning more about what exact the NSA can decipher and obtain because now I know exactly what not to do if I ever want to keep something confidential, truly confidential. Some of the things Snowden released, I expected the NSA to already be able to do and have done before such as listening to peoples phones calls, durations, history, etc. One of the things that worried me is how the NSA obtains a copy of anything sent outside of the United States. The video explained how even if you don’t intentionally send something outside of the United States, the servers may bounce it out of the United States, then bring it back to the respondent.
One thing that I took away from this the dictation between a text message and an iMessage. Text messages can be bounced around and that's when the NSA can receive a copy of it. With a typical iMessage, Apple’s servers are stored locally (within the United States) so I would wonder if iMessages are as susceptible to being “copied” by the NSA just like text messages are. Of course if your iMessaging a phone number internationally then there would most likely be copied. Unfortunately American have learned that there is no such thing as true privacy when it comes to electronic communications so to be safe, consider every call, text or even email you send to be non-confidential, then you will have nothing to worry about which is unfortunate but there is nothing we can do until this issue is publicly addressed.
In this article posted on The Guardian, Edward Snowden broke his silence about how Australian law enforcement has no right to collect communication records from a Guardian journalist without a warrant. These communications might have continued information that Snowden had leaked himself back when he use to work for the NSA. In March of 2015, the Australian government passed legislation that required mobile phone companies to retain customer metadata for 24 months so it can be used for “mass surveillance”. The Australian government stated that although a last-minute amendment obligated security agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing a journalist’s metadata, the law essentially expands the Australian government’s ability to conduct dragnet surveillance.
From my understand, I believe that the Australian government should be held to the law and therefor would need to obtain a warrant prior to collecting communication records from an individual. Without knowledge of what exactly was taken, and what types of knowledge was held within these ceased communication records, its difficult to discuss the type of impact that will occur. One thing that surprised me is how this main incident that took place in the United States has affected multiple countries all over the world and it seems as if almost every country that was involved to trying their best to collect these documents before they are all revealed or openly discussed.
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/17/edward-snowden-on-police-pursuing-journalist-data-the-scandal-is-what-the-law-allows
Good article. I'm not sure why you aren't bothered by phone and internet monitoring, but that these same networks link to other countries is worrisome. Or is that other countries are just as bad as we are/were? Great discussion.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be problem in Austrailia and other countries (even the U.S. of A.): "Police in developed democracies don’t pore over journalists’ private activities to hunt down confidential sources," Snowden told the Guardian.
Delete"The Australian federal police are defending such operations as perfectly legal, but that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows."