Posted: February 2nd, 2015

a summary of the issue: explain the issue in internet privacy you have chosen to cover. You can focus on government or corporate collection of data.

Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

 

Paper #2: Arguing a Position

Internet Privacy

 

New technologies are making it easier for private companies and the government to follow our cell phone and online activities. Corporations collect our information to sell to the highest bidder, while the Patriot Act, enacted after 9/11, expanded government powers to monitor us like never before.

With more and more of our lives moving online, these intrusions can have devastating implications for our right to privacy. But more than just privacy is threatened when everything we say, everywhere we go, and everyone we associate with are fair game. We have seen that surveillance – whether by government or corporations – chills free speech and association, undermines a free media, and threatens the free exercise of religion.

On the other hand, the collection and sale of our data by private online sites ensures that they will remain free for us to use and provides us with information that is targeted to our preferences. Furthermore, enhanced government surveillance can be necessary to keep us as safe as possible from future terrorist attacks. Besides, “If I have nothing to hide, why should I worry?”

 

You may use outside research for this paper. I have placed some internet sites to get you started under “Course Materials” on our ilearn page.

 

PLEASE INCLUDE FOLLOWING INSTRUTIONS:

A clearly written, well presented position that demonstrates . . .

1) an interesting introduction

2) a summary of the issue: explain the issue in internet privacy you have chosen to cover. You can focus on government or corporate collection of data.

3) a statement of your position (thesis). How much information should the government or a corporation be able to collect and for what purposes?

4) convincing support for your thesis using appropriate logic and evidence from authorities.

Any court decision or articles we discussed in class or on our ilearn webpage can

be considered authorities for this paper.

5) response to an opposing position.

6) a conclusion

7) topic sentences and transitions

8) A list of Research Sources used.

 

*Please use the other doc. I provided to find articles.*

Edward Snowden and NSA surveillance

In 2013, Edward Snowden, through The Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, began to release secret documents that revealed widespread government surveillance programs on the cell phones, email, social media accounts and internet searches of American citizens in cooperation with telecommunication companies and internet servers.

Snowden has leaked thousands of pages of documents on the NSA spying program and they are still being released. Here are some brief summaries of those documents:

http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-revelations/

 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/everything-we-learned-from-edward-snowden-in-2013-20131231

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/a-devastating-leak-for-edward-snowdens-critics/373991/

 

1) All phone companies turn over location and calling information, phone numbers of everyone we call to the NSA

2) It can order data from internet content providers such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple and Twitter.

3) Xkeyscore records what we type into the internet – searches, emails, whatever.

4) Encryption bypass: All internet companies with an encryption page for when you pay for something is required by the government to have a back door in which they can access that information.

5) The government collects all text messages from your phone.

6) The NSA gathers records of porn sites and online sexual activity they say to discredit the reputations of jihadist radicalizers

7) Monitors locations of people by their cell phones.

8) Infiltrate online role playing video games they say to catch possible terrorist plots.

 

By the way, all these things can be hacked by people outside the government as well.

 

 

Why should privacy matter to me? I have nothing to hide?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oAAfJ4yttY

See the St. Martin’s Guide article: “Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’” pg 266.

Here is a Glenn Greenwald “Ted Talk” on Why Privacy Matters. Greenwald is the journalist who presented Snowden’s information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk

 

Here is a debate between two experts on whether Snowden was justified in releasing these top secret documents:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/14/debate_was_snowden_justified_former_nsa

 

Here’s a huge file of articles you can skim through on the issue:

com/us-news/the-nsa-files“>http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files

 

This is an ACLU article on how The NSA is tracking your movements:

https://www.aclu.org/how-government-tracking-your-movements

 

The NSA is building a huge facility in Utah to store all the information it is collecting. You can read about that here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/23/225381596/booting-up-new-nsa-data-farm-takes-root-in-utah

 

Here is President Obama’s defense of the NSA’s mass collection of data:

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-nsa-speech-snowden-2014-1

This is the NSA director’s defense:

/nsa-director-gives-firm-and-broad-defense-of-surveillance-efforts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0″>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/nsa-director-gives-firm-and-broad-defense-of-surveillance-efforts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here are 2 articles that disagree with the NSA policies:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/why-the-nsas-defense-of-mass-data-collection-makes-no-sense/280715/

com/corner/356027/ending-nsa-surveillance-not-answer-john-yoo“>http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356027/ending-nsa-surveillance-not-answer-john-yoo

 

The ACLU is suing the Obama Administration to place limits on NSA domestic spying. Here’s what they want:

https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/modernizing-electronic-communications-privacy-act-ecpa