US intelligence agencies have organized global surveillance
The e-surveillance program has become a hot topic in the US media. Experts claim that the United States is halfway to totalitarianism: the state is increasingly interfering in the personal lives of citizens. Under control - every phone call, tweet or blog entry. The government tried to conceal the implementation of the program, but information about it went to the press. Reports of surveillance caused a huge scandal, although among American politicians there were also supporters of total control over citizens. Has the psychological barrier been overcome? Is private life an empty sound now?
Great exposure
Perhaps the word “totalitarianism” is still inappropriate, but, in any case, the United States has taken a number of measures that seriously restrict the rights of their own and foreign nationals. The “215 program”, which provides for the introduction of large-scale control over US citizens and foreigners residing in the States, was adopted in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on 2001. For more than ten years, American citizens did not know that they were the subject of observations from their own government. Only a series of high-profile revelations from Edward Snowden allowed to shed light on the actions of US intelligence.
So, in the summer of 2013, the press got information that the National Security Agency receives information about subscribers of one of the largest US telephone companies. At the same time, a large government program PRISM was launched, designed to spy on Internet users from around the world.
Interestingly, even after the Snowden revelations, the US authorities do not even try to defend the rights of their citizens: the president and Congress are indifferent to the actions of the special services. Barack Obama is limited to duty and, in general, the correct phrases that, they say, it is ugly to interfere in the privacy of Americans. Most likely, the president has long been acquainted with the details.
According to Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, the collection of information on telephone calls is a violation of the fourth amendment of the US Constitution. But government lawyers argue the opposite: spying on citizens is part of the campaign against terrorism, and is an indispensable condition for protecting the States from external threats.
In turn, the head of the national intelligence of the United States, James Klapper, believes that the scandal could have been avoided if the American special services did not hide the program of total surveillance from the very beginning. Then, according to Clapper, the citizens themselves would support the intentions of the national intelligence service.
The head of national intelligence compares electronic surveillance with fingerprint collection. James Klapper says: the special services program is like a security check at the airport. Listening to private conversations is tantamount to checking shoes that you need to take off at a control point before boarding an aircraft. The surveillance program "is needed for the common good" - so says the head of the national intelligence.
Clapper believes the main problem is the shock caused by the release of information about the control of private conversations and the correspondence of citizens. Americans were not ready to accept information declassified by Edward Snowden. The director of the National Intelligence Service considers his work to spy on compatriots and does not agree that it violates the rights of US residents.
My tongue is my enemy
Independent political observers believe that control over the private life of citizens is one of the most important problems for the United States. Every person must have a personal space, and his loss is a personal disaster. The invasion of citizens' private lives is a direct path to totalitarianism.
Analysts claim that the civilian institutions of the United States have been systematically destroyed over the years. The government is increasingly ignoring the rights guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution. 2001 was a turning point in the year when unprecedented security measures were introduced in the United States after the September 11 attacks.
At the same time, most of the blame lies with ordinary citizens, who gladly publish private information on social networks. To obtain comprehensive information about a person, it is not at all necessary to have access to his personal documents or to observe his behavior for several days: the entire underworld is on the public eye on the global network. There - the names of all family members, place of work, favorite activities.
Moreover, thanks to platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, it is possible to monitor the actions of a citizen in real time: where is he now? what is he doing? The user himself tells about his intimate life in the smallest detail. A blog, a social network page is an open source of information.
Interestingly, by collecting information on social networks, the security services do not really violate any laws. The facts become known to the general public due to the unreasonable behavior of the people themselves. The use of new information technologies has significantly expanded the capabilities of the special services of all countries of the world. Now you can organize surveillance without getting up from the workplace.
At the same time, new methods of control should be given an appropriate legal assessment. According to Alexei Panin, deputy director of the center for political information, law enforcement actions should be coordinated with the rights of ordinary citizens. Intelligence agencies are increasingly criticized, especially in the West, precisely because they encroach on the privacy of people.
Any action causes opposition
Over the past decades, the cost of total control systems has fallen in price so much that the introduction of universal observation is only a moral issue. This applies not only to listening to phones and collecting information on social networks, but also to such methods of surveillance as the installation of video cameras or the use of GPS transmitters. For example, the cost of servicing a bracelet with a GPS navigator on the first day of observation is 10 dollars per hour, over the next week - 1,43 dollars per hour, during the month - 0,36 dollars per hour. Similar results are demonstrated by the relatively new method of surveillance using a radio signal emitted by a cell phone.
Experts estimate that monitoring a suspect using a navigator costs 300 times cheaper than using a radio transmitter, and 775 times - using the method of surveillance from inside the car. In turn, the system of control over users of the global network costs just $ 574 per year per US taxpayer, which is equivalent to 6,5 cents per hour.
As the number of objects grows, the costs of spying on each of them decrease. It turns out that total control will be cheaper than personalized surveillance. Far from everyone can resist the temptation, even if moral norms are violated.
Abuse of technological capabilities has become the norm for US intelligence. At the same time, citizens remain defenseless: in US law, in the charters of special services there are no rules restricting law enforcement agencies in choosing sources for collecting information.
However, the security services have a vulnerability: they physically lack the people and capacity to handle the gigantic flow of information that the Internet generates every day. Paradoxical situation: theoretically, you can get access to a message containing valuable information, but for this you need to filter out the kilotons of "seals", funny videos and meaningless chatter. It will not take long to store this data, since there is no such information carrier that is capable of containing a lot of information contained in the global network.
In addition, there is an improvement in methods aimed at countering the special services. What does it cost, for example, “onion routing” - a favorite technology of groups of various kinds, ranging from anarchists to Islamists.
The engineering council of the Internet is ready to support supporters of anonymity (beyond their political preferences, of course). The composition of this informal club includes the founding fathers of the web, people who were involved in developing the protocols that make the global network work. At their last meeting last fall, the members of the Engineering Council came to the conclusion that it was necessary to adopt new standards that could sharply limit the capabilities of the special services. In the coming years, it is expected that concrete solutions to the security problem will be proposed.
As you know, any action causes a reaction. Strengthening pressure on its citizens, the US intelligence agencies will certainly face a response, and it is not known what form it will take. Will the resistance continue in the form of Internet activism or grow into something more? Shows time.
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