The National Security Agency

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The National Security Agency was started in the effort to confront problems that the U.S. might face, and eliminate those problems before they ever made it to the light of day. They did this through any means they possessed, and or could attain. The national security agency possesses too much power, and should not be allowed to circumvent the law to improve their gains in global affairs. The national security agency’s primary goal is to keep the US safe from threats, but there means are less than suitable. The National security agency’s XKEYSCORE and other spying programs run rampant with little to no restrictions, their hacking/espionage of nations and companies goes unhindered, and their unrestricted access to the backbone of internet is …show more content…

XKEYSCORE is fed a constant flow of Internet traffic (up to 15 terabytes/s) from fiber optic cables. These cables are part of the internet's backbone. The raw data it collects can be stored for 4-5 days, and the metadata for up to 45 days, unless the National Security Agency or other organization granted access to the database, requests for it to held longer. TEMPROA, a addon for XKEYSCORE. Its function is to collect all data in and out of the UK routers, in a rolling database, this allows analysts see every single scrap of data, and can be analyzed easier, faster, and with more thoroughness. PRISM: a Program where the National Security Agency, with the help of telephone carriers such as verizon, and at&t, take phone data such as geo location, caller logs, duration, recieving caller, caller id. They claimed to have used it during the early 2000’s to 2009 to pattern organized crime, when they would call or recieve texts. Also to track suspected terrorists in the U.S.. SKYNET, “from use of GSM metadata, we measure aspects of each selectors pattern-of-life, social network, and travel behavior”. SIGINT,”specifically limited to gathering information about international terrorists and foreign powers, organizations, or persons. These requests for information can be requested by any department in the Executive branch” Kaspersky Lab, One …show more content…

During one of Snowden's interviews with the german magazine the Spiegel explained how invasive the TEMPORA program really was “TEMPORA is the signals intelligence community's first "full-take" Internet buffer that doesn't care about content type and pays only marginal attention to the Human Rights Act. It snarfs everything, in a rolling buffer to allow retroactive investigation without missing a single bit.” said Edward Snowden (Storm, Darlene. "Snowden Warns Tempora Surveillance 'snarfs' Everything”). This shows the little care government has for ones privacy, the laws they implement and that the idea that our governments were constructed upon. The government is meant to serve the people, not vice versa. TEMPORA is a very scary and massive system, but it's only a small addon for the most infamous National Security Agency’s program XKEYSCORE. The Government's program XKEYSCORE is the most if not one of the most far reaching data collectors ever made. In a matter of seconds terabytes of data are collected to be appx. about 15 terabytes/s are collected by the National Security Agency’s XKEYSCORE,(Sacha et al., "National Security Agency Files: Decoded.") “XKEYSCORE is fed a constant flow of Internet traffic from fiber optic cables that make up the backbone of the world’s communication network, among other sources, for processing.” (Morgan Marquis-Boire et al.,

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