NSA can follow nearly everything you do online in real-time
In a report on VentureBeat Edward Snowden's latest relevations uncover that the NSA can basically see nearly everything you do online. This is getting a PR nightmare for the USA. According to the whistleblower, the XKeyscore program enables the NSA to wiretap anyone, almost instantly. They can also see your real-time Internet activity, read your e-mail, monitor your Facebook, and get your IP address by searching for visitors to any specified site.
According to the latest revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA can:
- wiretap anyone, almost instantly, as long as it has their email address
- see your real-time Internet activity
- read anyone’s email
- monitor Facebook chats
- see “nearly everything” you do online
- get your IP address by searching for visitors to any specified site
The NSA program that does this is called XKeyscore, and it’s a massive big data collection, warehousing, and analysis program that, if we can believe what Snowden is saying, basically lays bare your entire digital self. Essentially, we’re Frodo and Sam, and the NSA is the Eye of Sauron — but more effective, more powerful.
The question is whether or not we can believe him. Those are big, big accusations.
The evidence that Snowden provided to The Guardian is compelling: vast quantities of screenshots that show training materials and actual applications that the NSA has built to enable armchair James Bonds, AKA intelligence analysts, to sort and sift through a vast database of 850 billion events and 150 billion Internet records, with 20+ terabytes being added daily:
Essentially, it’s armchair surveillance via WYSIWYG drag-and-drop menus. If we can believe what we’re hearing.
That “if” is rather crucial.
There are only two ways the NSA could amass such huge amounts of unencrypted data: by intercepting everything at the ISP level and decrypting in almost-real time any HTTPS or otherwise encrypted transmissions, or by having backdoors in dozens if not thousands of companies’ systems to access data on a regular and continuous basis.
Companies like Google have completely and categorically denied those allegations, saying that “There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box.”
In a statement to the Guardian, the NSA denied that XKeyscore was accessible to all analysts and said that it was a “lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system,” but did not deny any of the capabilities Snowden claims it has. And the NSA, which has said that 300 terrorists were captured via XKeyscore as of 2008, defended the value of the program.
More on venturebeat (click source).
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Isn't that because of the "international ground" type-of-thing, and has it's own jurisdiction as part of international treaties and agreements and what-nots?
Like if you are a certain distance off shore and therefore in international water, you can gamble, shoot guns, get monkeys to do a knife fight etc.
Swear airports have this, but I stand to be corrected.
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Isn't that because of the "international ground" type-of-thing, and has it's own jurisdiction as part of international treaties and agreements and what-nots?
Like if you are a certain distance off shore and therefore in international water, you can gamble, shoot guns, get monkeys to do a knife fight etc.
Swear airports have this, but I stand to be corrected.
No, it has nothing to do with whether it's an international airport or not.
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Posts: 48
Joined: 2009-02-10
Now, I'm not trying to start an argument by any means, just a friendly debate.
I'm not laying blame solely on the NSA, I never said that once. The NSA is a government agency, and that government is what I'm referring to. It's my firm belief that our military shouldn't be anywhere in times where we're not needed. Everything that has brought us to this war in the middle east was because of our military and political presence in other countries.
However, I can't see how you could label Snowden as a traitor. The only thing he has done was tell us that our government (the NSA, more accurately) has been quite capable of spying on us and are collecting data on US citizens as well as foreign people. Now, it's debatable on what data they're accessing, but in the end it's about their ability to just find out everything about who you are in a search and a few clicks. I'm sorry, but I don't support that by any means, regardless if we're at war (which was VERY much avoidable) or not.
THAT is breaching our constitutional rights. Our 4th amendment is effectively worthless in this day and age where congress votes in almost whatever law is beneficial to their interests.
How is it untrue? There are not provisions in the constitution that allows them unwarranted seizure of one's property (data), nor are they allowed to an unwarranted search (what you've been looking up on google, etc.), so I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. There are newly passed laws that allow such activity, however, they directly bypass the 4th amendment. It seems people confuse laws with the constitution.
Not trying to argue either.
It could be argued that anything that is transmitted on the internet comes under the "plain view" allowance of the 4th. It's different if they have to hack email accts., wiretap phones, etc... Simply intercepting information and viewing it though, could easily be considered out in plain view for them to see. The information doesn't have to be discovered by accident. There are other exclusions to the 4th as well. Searches at an airport, for example. so, it's not just all encompassing with no exceptions.