NSA mines Facebook for connections, including Americans' profiles
By David Simpson and Pamela Brown, CNN
Not only does the NSA use phone calls and emails to use information for the government, it now has adapted a new way of filtering information- social media. These connections with social media act as a 'social map connection' that traces people's contacts throughout the world. This information was disclosed by Edward Snowden to the New York Times on sunday.
According to the information given, this was created after a policy change in November of 2010. The idea is to "discover and track" connections from foreign suspects to American people. This new information is used to 'enhance' the information from phones and emails by using geo tagging, insurance and tax records, and other public and private resources. However, a PowerPoint presented by Snowden proves in diagrams of where a person is at all times, their friends who are with them, their social network connections and email recipients.
I don't really know who to believe in this situation because neither side is a credible source. However I think that going into people's social live's is a bit extreme, if there is a court order then I feel like it's acceptable, but not without one.
I feel like this is a prime example of the battle between security and privacy. I could see for safety reason why, occasionally, they would need to access someone's information from social media. However, I do feel it is a privacy issue as well.
ReplyDeleteIt goes back to the fact that anything you put out there is, in some way, accessible to everyone.
ReplyDeleteThe power of data in the Internet age is quite tremendous, and frightening. It makes me uneasy to think that my internet activity is being monitored by the government (and corporations for that matter.)
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