Echelon: Considerations with International Communications Monitoring
Introduction
Since the invention of radio, intelligence-gathering organizations have been developing and using eavesdropping techniques to intercept and review wireless communications. Initially, these capabilities were solely used to spy on hostile nations, and particularly for military purposes. Human operators had to manually review each transmission, and cryptanalysts pored over military ciphers in an attempt to decode important messages. As wireless communication has become an integral part of commercial and individual existence, and potential threats to security are increasingly found in peacetime and on home ground, the scope of this intelligence gathering has likewise broadened. One of the most controversial eavesdropping systems in existence is a classified project known as ‘Echelon.’ Its use of computer hardware and software to filter communications from all over the world brings up many ethical issues related to the impact of computers on privacy.
Overview of Echelon
Most of the evidence for Echelon is circumstantial, though a few facts have been established. The participating organizations (notably the US Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency) have neither confirmed nor denied its existence. In lieu of a discussion of the ethical issues, a brief summary of the current knowledge follows.
How it Works
Echelon is the product of Cold War efforts to monitor wireless communications in the USSR. It traces its roots back to the clandestine UKUSA alliance, a communications intelligence agreement that dates back from around 1947. Member nations include the US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It is now known that the system has been in existence for at least 20 years.[1] In the past, high frequency radio listening posts were also used to listen to radio communications. Currently, the system is composed of a series of eavesdropping satellites, ground listening stations, and supercomputers that intercept and sift through telecommunications satellite broadcasts. These broadcasts include faxes, phone calls, and web traffic- especially those dispatched over long distances.[2] The term Echelon has never actually been mentioned by officials, but is believed to represent the computer system that manages the data gathered by the network.[3] The computers are used to store and analyze text data for key words, and to review telephone conversations for unique ‘voiceprints’ or the phone numbers of persons under surveillance.[4] This makes it possible to filter an enormous amount of traffic, since human analysts review only relevant messages. The US National Security Agency (NSA) is widely considered to be both the originator and head of the project, and likely owns and operates the major computer facilities for Echelon.
The pros of electronic surveillance are extensive. The ability for agents of the United States Intelligence Community (IC) to intercept and process communications and information from foreign powers, agents of foreign powers, international terrorist organizations, and others who seek to engage in activities with such groups, provides the ...
The comparable scene of both works is the discovery of Kurtz in his misery and the tragedy of his death. In each piece of work, whether novel or movie, when Kurtz was discovered the audience automatically understood that he was insane. Conrad illustrated the idea of meeting Kurtz with heads and filth on his part of the jungle, but Coppola really brought Kurtz’s insanity to life. The numerous, headless bodies and heads of kids and adults hanging from trees, poles, and sticks, dripping with fresh blood were only Coppola’s first way of bringing to light Kurtz’s cruelty and horror. The bodies in the movie were pale and white so, the audience had no choice but to notice and feel squeamish from their sight. Conrad on the other hand only made the bodiless heads seem no more than a totem pole for decoration.
In both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, both authors develop the scene in order to highlight the evolution of Kurtz’s character. Each scene reflects similar themes of the animalistic nature brought out of man. Kurtz manifestation reflects the effects that temptations have upon us. In Heart of Darkness, the hunger for material wealth and the sacrifice of blood displays society’s imperial ideology. Conrad uses this scene to show the hidden evil within man, and creates a physical representation of the mental distortion caused by malicious acts. While Conrad indirectly voices the absurdity of war, Coppola uses Kurtz as an example of a soldier driven into insanity by war. Though Coppola fails to show the physical effect of insanity, the scene of darkness that engulfs him displays a similar effect.
In Judith Jarvis Thompson’s article “A Defense of Abortion” she explores the different arguments against abortion presented by Pro –Life activists, and then attempts to refute these notions using different analogies or made up “for instances” to help argue her point that women do have the right to get an abortion. She explains why abortion is morally permissible using different circumstances of becoming pregnant, such as rape or unplanned pregnancy.
In her article Thomson starts off by giving antiabortionists the benefit of the doubt that fetuses are human persons. She adds that all persons have the right to life and that it is wrong to kill any person. Also she states that someone?s right to life is stronger than another person?s autonomy and that the only conflict with a fetuses right to life is a mother?s right to autonomy. Thus the premises make abortion impermissible. Then Thomson precedes to attacks the premise that one?s right to autonomy can be more important to another?s right to life in certain situations. She uses quite an imaginative story to display her point of view. Basically there is a hypothetical situation in which a very famous violinist is dying. Apparently the only way for the violinist to survive is to be ?plugged? into a particular woman, in which he could use her kidneys to continue living. The catch is that the Society of Music Lovers kidnapped this woman in the middle of the night in order to obtain the use of her kidneys. She then woke up and found herself connected to an unconscious violinist. This obviously very closely resembles an unwanted pregnancy. It is assumed that the woman unplugging herself is permissible even though it would kill the violinist. Leading to her point of person?s right to life is not always stronger than another person?s right to have control over their own body. She then reconstructs the initial argument to state that it is morally impermissible to abort a fetus if it has the right to life and has the right to the mother?s body. The fetus has the right to life but only has the right to a ...
...ns her right to autonomy, which is then infringed upon by the unexpected and unwanted fetus, allowing that it is morally permissible for her to abort the fetus. I think this argument is valid because it too weighs a woman’s right to autonomy against a fetus’s right to life. In the case of rape, a woman’s body is involuntarily taken and used. Because we have determined that it is morally permissible for a woman to maintain her autonomy at the expense of the fetus’s life, we can draw similar conclusions about the flawed anti-people-seed screen. In this situation, too, a woman’s body is taken against her will by a fetus. At no point does she offer her body to this fetus or waive her right to autonomy. Therefore, we can deduce that this woman’s right to autonomy is being violated by the fetus, and that it is therefore morally permissible for the fetus to be aborted.
In this analogy, Thomson describes a situation involving a really small house, a person, and a rapidly growing child. The child keeps growing and becoming larger and larger; the house cannot support such growth and the person in it is being crushed. Eventually the walls of the house will explode and the person in the house will die. The child, however, will just complete his or her growth and walk out of the house in perfect conditions. The person represents the woman, the house represents her body, and the growing child represents the fetus. From this analogy, it is evident that as the fetus grows and completes his or her nine months of growth, the woman is dying in the process. Thomson does not believe that the woman, knowing that she has a health condition that will kill her if she goes through with the pregnancy, should just sit and wait until the pregnancy kills her based on the fact that it would be immoral for her to abort. According to Thomson, it would be morally permissible for the woman to abort the baby based on her right to self-defense. Although Thomson states that, “in this case there are only two people involved, one whose life is threatened, and one who threatens it. Both are innocent: the one who is threatened is not threatened because of any fault, the one who threatens does not threaten because of any fault” (43), she does not believe that because both the woman and fetus are innocent, this should allow for no action to be taken or that they have equal say in the matter. Thomson believes the woman should exercise her right to protect her life from the fetus threatening it because she is the owner of her body, not the fetus. Once again, this supports her argument that the woman’s right to decide what to do with her body outweighs the fetus’ right to
In her essay, “A Defense for Abortion,” Judy Jarvis Thomson primarily argues for the permissibility of abortion, due to rape, but it can be challenged by exposing flaws in her argument that relies heavily on analogy. However, objections to Thomson’s explanation fail to defeat her argument.
Kurtz's character is fully facet (in Conrad's Heart of Darkness), not because of his conventional roll of antagonist, but for his roll in a historical fiction as a character with important roll in society, influenced by those close to him. Kurtz makes some key developments in the way he interacts with others, in large part due to the words and actions of society and Kurtz's acquaintances.
Continuous improvement (CI) refers to a philosophy consisting of improvement activities that increase successes and reduce failures in a production process (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005, p. 761). It involves activities and processes that focus on continuous and incremental innovation (Bessant et al., 1994, p.17). CI is a new approach that enhances productivity, performance, and achieves competitive advantage needed in the highly competitive industries. It may also serve as a complementary approach to other quality improvement initiatives such as total quality management (TQM) (Pike, Barnes, & Barnes 1995, p. 23; Larson 2003; Lassen, Gertsen, & Riis 2006; Oakland 2007, p. 227). The purpose of this research is to explore the application of production systems engineering methods in the CI at manufacturing plants.
The Goal is a book that has an immense support on improvement, which will undoubtedly encourage the Total Quality Management terminology when trying to built up and improve their productivity. However, the Theory of Constraints also plays a very important role in this book, because it guide us to not only focus on the improvements of the business as a whole, but also to focus intensively on the constrains, “ Herbies”, or bottlenecks.
Nearly every major international agreement on human rights protects the right of individuals to be free from unwarranted surveillance. This guarantee has trickled down into national constitutional or legal provisions, protecting the privacy of communications.
Cental Intelligence Agency. “Electronic Publishing Specialist” CIA.gov. CIA.gov 27 April. 2007. Web. 27 February 2014.
America and Europe are at the top of the list for most waste generated according to Waste (4). This is very visible because there’s litter on every street in the towns and cities, as well in lakes, beaches, and rivers. The book Waste by Rob Bowden states that the amount of waste produced is increasing at a rate faster than population growth. About 1.5 million computers, in the U.K, are thrown away each year and most end up in landfills. There are 3 types of waste which are Municipal Solid Waste, Industrial Waste, and Hazardous waste. MSW includes waste from public garbage cans and local dumpsters. Industrial Waste includes massive amounts of waste water that is contaminated with chemicals. Hazardous waste is the most dangerous as it presents a danger to human health and the environment. Solutions for waste disposal take time because people need to consider their lifestyle and limit the amount of waste they generate. A good start is to recycle items such as paper, cans, plastic, and clothes. This way they don’t end up in landfills, beaches, or streets. Another solution is to join organizations that go around places to recycle, or organizations that demand the reduction in the amount of products that are being
TQM is a system of continuous improvement of work processes to enhance the organization’s ability to deliver high-quality products or services in a cost-effective manner [2]. The focus of TQM is to improve customer satisfaction and reduce waste [3]. Customers include ...