NSA Eavesdropping and
Data Mining

Table of Contents
Abstract..........................................................................................................3

Introduction....................................................................................................4

Literature Review............................................................................................6

Discussion.......................................................................................................13

Conclusion......................................................................................................15

References.......................................................................................................17

Abstract Technology is constantly around us and from this point forward it is never going away not that most of us can remember a time without cell phones but for some of us we can still recall a time when it didn’t exist. Eavesdropping has been a complex endeavor and has been evolving over the years from placing a listening device which had a built in microphone and a short distance transmitter. Now it is complex algorithms that can when completely decrypted give a person or an organization complete information on a person and allow them access into a private life. I say private life when in all actuality we seem to be more responsive to sharing everything with everyone in fact it is a lack of anonymity and of a global pandemic of sharing information that when dissected may not or maybe should not be shared. The prospect of this paper is to look at the intrusiveness from not just companies but government organizations into our lives. Now in a couple of instances I can see how and why these organizations are conducting their business and intrigue into our lives. Now some will claim that this is all for the greater good as they like to call it but no matter how you paint the picture or what veil you put over it; it is still considered and viewed as an invasion of privacy and needs to be handled very carefully. This paper will go into depth on the different tactics and applications used to obtain said private information about our lives. We will also look at the factors in which the National Security Agency operates and the information that is shared between our cousins across the pond as it were; the Government Communications Headquarters in England and the type of tactics they are using for this collection of information.

Introduction Over the past couple of years it has become an ever apparent issue that our lives and our information are being collected and compiled. Now initially people are and were wary of businesses or other internet sites monitoring traffic and navigation. The Big issue is what our government is doing and the means in which they are collecting and monitoring our lives. In the interest of keeping the American citizen safe are they doing so even at the cost of our privacy and if so where do you draw the line of protection and privacy? Information is very valuable some more than others but none of the less it is very important to someone. After a key day in Americans lives it became ever apparent that the government needs to do more to help keep us safe. There was almost a unanimous cry out for help and what can you do to keep and protect our way of life. Now that is the tricky part, I mean how far should the government go to up hold our way of life and to try and maintain piece; that of course is the big question at hand and is of recently getting a lot of scrutiny because of the actions taken. Having a little bit of a background in security because of working in intelligence in the U.S. Navy I completely understand how important information can be. Today people are trying or should I say attempting to be a little more cautious in the information that is accessible about them or that they post on a social media. On the other hand some people are completely oblivious to how much of their lives are being put on display for almost everyone to see and observe. For instance there is an insurance commercial that comes to mind about a lady at the airport posting online that she is getting ready to go on vacation and in reply to that a burglar states have a good trip. That commercial gets me every time because I see family and friends doing that very thing, letting their facebook app use their phones GPS to post their present location. Now of course there are some other issues with apps that people are just now finding out about, I’d like to think that people were already investigating what these apps do behind the scene but I think a lot of it happened because of Snowden.
What if through using one of many apps on your phone that you find out that it basically made a secure tunnel for your phone and accessing it. You might be saying to yourself this isn’t a sci-fi movie, you are correct it isn’t but it is really happening. While slinging birds through the air you give a lot of information that you may or may not think is relevant but it is your private information. This could definitely cause some alarm and curiosity on what else is constantly accessing your phone without your knowledge.
I will learn a lot about the different technologies that are being used to collect and harvest personal information about us. I am collecting all the pertinent information that I can find to help represent both sides of the invasion of privacy, the good and noble reasons and the ethical reasons why it shouldn’t be allowed and some of the consequences involved. There will also be information about some of the services that we as U.S. citizens use that are also looking out for our well being and what they are trying to do about digital snooping. I plan to equally represent the information from both sides of the issue and being as impartial as possible while listing all credible information. Though when it comes to protecting civil rights and liberties things can quickly become heated and one sided. After reading a lot of the articles pertaining to digital snooping of our cell phones I do have my own opinion which I will list at the very end in my conclusion of the issue.
For this project I will be looking at both sides of the privacy issues and how they can possibly affect our lives as private citizens. Some professionals have stated that if the American citizen has nothing to hide then there will be no issues, but honestly our privacy is still a right that we have and cherish. As a ten year veteran I can honestly say that I spent a decent portion of my life helping to protect our rights but on the other hand I completely understand the government doing what they can to protect their citizens. I have seen firsthand the kinds of things that can happen when a government doesn’t do anything and sits idly bye and allows things to happen to innocent people. I will also be looking at the possibilities of cell phone providers giving unrestricted access to the NSA for their endeavor. I will also help bring to light some of the companies out there that understand and appreciate the privacy of their customers and what they are doing to help protect those rights from the snooping eyes of the government.
Literature Review One of the more pressing and troubling issues is when information from Edward Snowden was leaked or to use a less abrasive term shared with news organizations was what the NSA did with a select few world leaders. The National Security Agency wiretapped 35 different world leaders according to a classified document provided by Edward Snowden. The memo revealed that the NSA would persuade officials to divulge phone numbers of foreign politicians. (A&P Staff's Access Interface Portfolio, 2006) Now if this was an isolated incident then that would be one thing but the German chancellor Angela Merkel while attending an EU conference also accused the U.S. of tapping her phone.
The White House Press Secretary exclaimed after this information broke to the media that the U.S. is not and will not monitor her cell phone, eluding but not denying that they didn’t in the past. She went on to say, "We need to have trust in our allies and partners, and this must now be established once again. I repeat that spying among friends is not at all acceptable against anyone, and that goes for every citizen in Germany." (A&P Staff's Access Interface Portfolio, 2006) There is in fact a document that The Guardian was able to attain that states, “Customers Can Help SID Obtain Targetable Phone Numbers.” Now if you have never heard of SID then you are in the same boat as I am, SID stands for Signals Intelligence Directorate. Now the personnel working in this organization received the memo encouraging their staff to help obtain these targetable phone numbers. I understand that secrecy is a big part on how the National Security Agency operates but the more that the public finds out the more we push back and try and keep them at arms distance so to speak. Now this memo that originally was thought to have been a good idea has actually turned up little usable information that can help with keeping our country safer. In fact The Guardian states “In the wake of the Merkel row, the US is facing growing international criticism that any intelligence benefit from spying on friendly governments is far outweighed by the potential diplomatic damage.” (A&P Staff's Access Interface Portfolio, 2006) After this debacle there is a new practice which actually seems to a better way of obtaining the information that they require. Signals Intelligence takes things a step in a different direction and is open and upfront with what they want from their liaisons. They ask if the customers that their liaisons work with would be willing to hand over certain information like contact names and numbers instead of trying to be all cloak and dagger. This may seem to be very direct compared to those actions that have been taking thus far but it seems to have been received a lot better response. It seems that even U.S. customers are giving information to the NSA pertaining to their client list within the Continental United States and overseas. "From time to time, SID is offered access to the personal contact databases of US officials," it states. "Such 'Rolodexes' may contain contact information for foreign political or military leaders, to include direct line, fax, residence and cellular numbers." (A&P Staff's Access Interface Portfolio, 2006) Edward Snowden also released information that the NSA and their British counterpart are using popular Smartphone apps including Angry Birds and Google Maps to allow access into the enormous amount of information collected by apps like these. (FoxNews.com, 2014) When Rovio creators of Angry Birds had no knowledge of the possibility of the NSA or GCHQ having the capability to intrude users Smartphone’s through their app. Apparently in one instance the intrusion came from a third party advertisement which allowed the agencies into the device. Some of the information being collected while slinging birds at pigs would be the player’s age, sex, and tons of other personal information. As Smartphone’s continue to become more complex it seems the more information that is released out into the world and the possibility of this information being harvested and filed away. (JAMES GLANZ, 2014) If you happen to be one of millions that happen to use Google Maps then you are unknowingly allowing the possibility of either two of these agencies to use your phone as a locator which is accurate up to a couple of yards away. “It effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system,” reads a secret 2008 report by the NSA's sister spy agency, according to the New York Times. (FoxNews.com, 2014) Though it seems as if the focus on the apps being able to collect information were on Androids but it is safe to assume because of it being an application that it can give the same information on another device such as an iPhone. The GCHQ even has a list of which apps will give what information; apparently based on the type of app it may have extra information compared to others. Jay Carney during a White House press conference stated, "As the president said in his Jan. 17 speech, to the extent data is collected by the NSA, through whatever means, we are not interested in the communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets and we are not after the information of ordinary Americans," he said.” (FoxNews.com, 2014) While military and law enforcement agencies are able to hack individuals’ cell phones, the NSA in fact is far more advanced than that. The NSA has the ability to decode encryption used by the majority of cell phones in the world. What is concerning people is if the NSA has this capability how long before someone else will be able to do the same thing. (Soltani, 2013) The good thing is that it is not lawful for the NSA to collect the content of a conversation of American citizens without a court order, not to say that it couldn’t still happen but there are laws in place to help protect privacy. “Encryption experts have complained for years that the most commonly used technology, known as A5/1, is vulnerable and have urged providers to upgrade to newer systems that are much harder to crack.” (Soltani, 2013) Truthfully though most companies have taken this information and disregarded it because many different reasons but other than it being reliable doesn’t seem to be justified to dismiss. There are experts that say that even with some of the newer technologies that it will take an organization like the NSA a longer amount of time and computing power to actually achieve the same results. I have a big problem with that statement especially when I had read a story about a group of people that used four Nvidia graphics cards on a desktop to make it a simplified version of a supercomputer. Now with these graphics cards being tasked to run say mathematical sequencing or many other various programs it would be the equivalent of 350 pc’s doping the same work. Now that is impressive computing on a budget and who’s to say that a similar technique is used to crack and decrypt information. Now the funny thing about technology is that it may be the new kid on the block but sometimes can still rely on old technologies. For instance we have phones that run on 3G and or 4G networks but were you aware that more often than not that when you make a simple call your high tech phone may be using an older technology to complete the task referred to as 2G which has little to no encryption at all and can leave your conversation open to people eavesdropping. (Soltani, 2013) Being as tech savvy as I thought I was I was dumbfounded at learning about this, part of me though was not as surprised because of how reliable that particular piece of technology is. Then there is also the regions of the world that aren’t considered wealthy and they still rely on that same 2G technology for their phones so as to no surprise to why most companies have not taken giant leaps forward to update systems. That would be an expensive venture and to be totally honest I truly believe that something like that would only happen if as a world we are more interconnected and are running on the same network. The downfall then is when someone gains access to one type of technology it can affect all of us as a whole and cause world wide damage.
Security is an ever-growing issue throughout the world but it is very disconcerting on whether or not improvements will be made before anyone else has the capability to exploit these devices. NSA has technology to turn your Smartphone into an eavesdropping device as well as being able to use radar wave devices to collect information from computers even while they are not online. (Reporter, 2013) That is very troubling to know that the NSA has some much access without the repercussions of doing such without a warrant or even a reason other than the blanket term used “For the greater good.”
There has been a new development into surveillance of a person phone and now including email and text messages. You would think just like anything that there would be some sort of court order when in fact no, all the NSA requires is based on an analyst’s decision which is sufficient to them to continue snooping. (McCullagh, 2013) Based on the information given about the parameters in which the NSA deems viable to continue digging through personal information I feel that it should be made clear the parameters in which they operate so that the justification is explained.
Even our President is taking steps to remove the NSA out of storing phone records. The problem is that initially it was stated that the President wants either the phone company to continue holding this information or the possibility the creation of a separate entity to do so. (CBS/AP, 2014) That is a very reasonable request put forth by our leader to limit how much information one government agency posses and retain for their use. There definitely should be some sort of limit put on the NSA to bind the agency of appearing to be without anyone to report to outside of their agency. I know that there is a chain of command of who answers to whom and who over sees who but most recently doesn’t appear that way. “"Both of these options pose difficult problems," Mr. Obama said in January.”Relying solely on the records of multiple providers, for example, could require companies to alter their procedures in ways that raise new privacy concerns.” (CBS/AP, 2014) The phone companies have concerns about the shift of information being put back into their hands. One of the issues is the cost of retaining the information which they didn’t have to worry about before. It has been made evident that the telecom companies are not going to support this transition willingly in fact the only way they are going to support it is if it is brought into legislation and they are legally required to do it. Second is that they are worried about the possibility of being sued by individuals for giving their customers information and phone data to intelligence or law enforcement agencies.
Now if you think that the NSA is the only real government agency that you have to worry about snooping, you would be wrong. In fact it seems that local police are starting to gain ground in collecting information from people cell phones. Now there are claims that this is in the name of doing the right thing such as finding criminals and or abducted children but what if that information were to get into the wrong hands. (Kelly, 2013) Law enforcement agencies have a couple of different tactics that they have at their disposal to gain information about cell phones.
The first thing that they can utilize is what is called a tower dump which allows an agency to view a log of cell phones that connected to a cell tower and the location it was and the movement during a selected span of time. Second the police can acquire a piece of equipment that costs around $400,000 that is roughly the size of a suitcase so it is very mobile and it pretends that it is a cell tower so devices automatically connect with it. “Thirty-six more police agencies refused to say whether they've used either tactic. Most denied public records requests, arguing that criminals or terrorists could use the information to thwart important crime-fighting and surveillance techniques.” (Kelly, 2013) Now you would think that with all these police dramas that are on TV. that they would utilize some sort of technology that isn’t real or is so far advanced towards cell phone tracking. In this instance it appears that real life and real technology has the upper hand in which the police operate. To think that a covert item like this is put into a vehicle and driven around to collect data for the police or any other law enforcement agency is a tad bit worrisome and it coincidentally has an appropriate covert name “Stingray.”
Now there is some good news about the sharing of personal information with the Intelligence communities. Yahoo has taken security for their customers seriously by adding more layers of security to help protect people’s online travel. Part of the measure undertaken by Yahoo is a system that encrypts information that is being transmitted from one data center to another. (AP, 2014) Yahoo is also advancing their encryption to video chatting and search requests on their home page all to help their customers from the prying eyes. The reasoning for this is part of an initiative to prevent snooping especially after all this information has come to light about invading personal privacy.
They even hired a security consultant as part of this act to help them with their endeavor to keep information as safe as possible. “"Whether or not our users understand it, I feel it's our responsibility to keep them safe," Alex Stamos, Yahoo's recently hired chief information of security, told a small group of reporters.” (AP, 2014) With the strides yahoo is taking they are not as far as they want to be nor are they even caught up to the measure deployed by Google. The reason for this is a lot of Yahoos revenue is from the ads posted on their pages, though it seems that most of the companies that provide ads and content understand the direction of things but some are still not convinced.
Discussion
After reading several different articles discussing that the NSA has no grounds for what they are doing and the invasion of personal information that they are collecting. Now as I stated before I am a veteran and I do understand to gain more protection the government has to take certain precautions to gain some ground. I’m not saying that you have to give up all your civil rights but there has to be some sort of justifiable balance. Now I do understand the civil rights organization being involved with the issues unveiled by Edward Snowden but as soon as some random terrorist act is undertaken or foiled the masses exclaim why the government doesn’t do more.
All in all I would have to side with civil liberties because when you give up one thing it doesn’t seem that bad especially when it is cloaked in a veil of “The greater good.” Soon after another liberty will be infringed on and then another and then another, where will it stop and again the veil will be thrown over it and will be defended for the reasons the intelligence community sees fit to mention. I have a feeling that all it will take is a certain level of an act of terrorism which will shove us over the precipice in which we will give total control over to the government to help keep us safe. The problem is we most likely will have no way to gain our rights back after this happens and then it would seem to play out like so many movies have displayed about governmental control.
Now I am not a person that believes in government conspiracies but I do believe we as U.S. citizens need to be very careful on the choices that we make about giving up our rights. It is also the right of every U.S. Citizen to question our leaders and our government. I think that if these heightened circumstances were met there may need to be some sort of declaration that states the response to an act of terrorism and the length in which the government would be allowed that kind of access. You don’t want to give any one specific entity complete and utter control of your life without some sort of checks and balance in play to help keep them as honest and honorable. I am not saying something like that will be easy to accomplish because with an endeavor like that will definitely spark some controversy and get some people all riled up. All of a sudden you will have activists coming out of the wood work so to say because of these possible infringements. I think that it is very necessary and decide what benefits all of us especially when comes to protecting U.S. citizen rights and keeping them safe.

Conclusion Data mining and eavesdropping is a definite and relevant concern and not just if you’re a U.S. citizen and it can affect everyone. Honestly who is to say that other countries are doing or attempting the same thing to collect information? As reported by the Gaurdian in England The Government Communications Headquarters is participating in using Smartphone apps to tunnel into phones to collect information. The bad thing whether your pro NSA eavesdropping and data collection or pro civil liberties there isn’t a clear cut way to make everyone happy.
There are viable reasons why steps like data collection are being taken with the constant threat of Cyber Terrorism. Especially with the ever growing news about credit cards being stolen or the criminal ring from Eastern Europe or finding out that Chinese Nationals are hacking companies looking and collecting information. If there were a better system of checks and balances put in place so no one intelligence agency is holding all of the information, which would be a good start towards not misusing power and accountability. United States citizens increasingly over the past few years are becoming more and more skeptical towards the government and the power that they wield especially with the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which is an amended part of the Patriot Act.
When the FBI, NSA or some other eye chart demands personal information from telecommunication companies without warrants that has a tendency to throw a lot of red flags which causes unnecessary attention. Actually I shouldn’t say unnecessary attention because it is very important for people to be aware of the issues at hand. Now supposedly the eavesdropping program is reviewed periodically by a team of lawyers to determine if the program is effective and lawful, now that would be a step in the right direction and should help to hinder people’s perspectives.
Just because a blanket term “for the greater good” is thrown over the un supervised infringement on U.S. citizens doesn’t allow them to have an unwavering free pass to do whatever they want doesn’t make it legal. Even though some may see a scenario like that impossible and could never happen but you have to be concerned that it could happen. The root of all of this whether you’re for or against comes down to this simple question; how much are you willing to give up to be safe or should I say feel safe?

References
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