National Security Agency's Espionage
Brady Schappert
Professor J. Lennon
English Composition 1301-6505
26 February 2014
NSA’s Espionage How ironic it is that the National Security Agency (NSA) would commit a crime such as espionage. Over the past decade, the NSA, FBI, and companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have been leaking each citizen’s personal information. After Truman established the NSA in 1952, it took twenty years for the Supreme Court to rule that warrants are required for domestic intelligence surveillance. Then in 1975, the Senate discovered illegal domestic spying by the NSA. After this incident, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which specifies the use of surveillance for collecting information on foreign powers, started protecting citizens’ personal information in 1978. After September 11, 2001, Bush began the NSA’s domestic spying program, which allowed the NSA to collect information on citizens. Since then, the NSA has illegally collected metadata, or data about data, from sources varying from phone companies to social websites. Companies such as Dropbox, Sony, Facebook, Microsoft and Google have been caught or admitted to leaking metadata to third party organizations such as NSA. Recently lawsuits against the NSA spying were filed on July 11, 2013 and November 22, 2013. Even with these lawsuits, there was a court-ordered renewal of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a metadata program to collect American’s phone call’s data, on October 11, 2013 and then again on January 3, 2014. The latest action taken was the hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which they recommended the removal of the program collecting phone records of the public. Also recent, was a poll done on American thoughts of NSA surveillance, which revealed that seventy percent of adults polled would rather keep their personal privacy than allow the freedom piercing surveillance of the NSA. Agreeing with the American people is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has recently
Professor J. Lennon
English Composition 1301-6505
26 February 2014
NSA’s Espionage How ironic it is that the National Security Agency (NSA) would commit a crime such as espionage. Over the past decade, the NSA, FBI, and companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have been leaking each citizen’s personal information. After Truman established the NSA in 1952, it took twenty years for the Supreme Court to rule that warrants are required for domestic intelligence surveillance. Then in 1975, the Senate discovered illegal domestic spying by the NSA. After this incident, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which specifies the use of surveillance for collecting information on foreign powers, started protecting citizens’ personal information in 1978. After September 11, 2001, Bush began the NSA’s domestic spying program, which allowed the NSA to collect information on citizens. Since then, the NSA has illegally collected metadata, or data about data, from sources varying from phone companies to social websites. Companies such as Dropbox, Sony, Facebook, Microsoft and Google have been caught or admitted to leaking metadata to third party organizations such as NSA. Recently lawsuits against the NSA spying were filed on July 11, 2013 and November 22, 2013. Even with these lawsuits, there was a court-ordered renewal of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a metadata program to collect American’s phone call’s data, on October 11, 2013 and then again on January 3, 2014. The latest action taken was the hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which they recommended the removal of the program collecting phone records of the public. Also recent, was a poll done on American thoughts of NSA surveillance, which revealed that seventy percent of adults polled would rather keep their personal privacy than allow the freedom piercing surveillance of the NSA. Agreeing with the American people is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has recently
Cited: Houston, Samuel. “Texas Constitution.” Texas Constitution and Statutes (2014):1. Web. 27 February 2014 Jefferson, Thomas. “Bill of Rights.” National Archives (2014):1. Web. 27 February 2014 Neal, Dave. “Nokia is Accused of Leaking Finnish Data to the U.S.” The Inquirer (2014):1. Web. 27 February 2014 Perera, David. “Cloud-Based Education Apps Could Be Data Mining For Ads.” FierceGovernmentIT (2014):1. Web. 27 February 2014