Overview

Since at least 2001, the NSA has been participating in “surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans” with the help of service telecommunication and internet providers such as AT&T (“NSA Spying”). The NSA is a US Government agency based in Maryland that was formed “in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances” ("NSA/CSS Mission, Vision, Values"). They used to only collect data about people who they thought could endanger the country, but now they are collecting data on all Americans and even some world leaders who we are currently friends and allies with. They say they want to spy on possible terrorists in America shown by in their mission statement, the NSA says the agency “also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad”, but they are spying on every single American, implying that they think the average US citizen is a common terrorist (Mission). They have also begun collecting information from the average American’s computer. When you send or receive information, it goes through wires or fiber optic cable. When it reaches a certain point, the NSA has fiber optic cable splitters, which as described by the EFF, “make exact copies of the data passing through them: then, one stream is directed to the government, while the other stream is directed to the intended recipients” (“How the NSA's Domestic Spying Program Works”). That means by now, they have a copy of what you are currently reading stashed away in their data banks.



WORKS CITED


"How the NSA's Domestic Spying Program Works." EFF. Electronic Frontier
Foundation, n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2014. <https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works>.

"Mission." NSA. National Security Agency, n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2014.

"NSA Spying." EFF. Electronic Frontier Foundation, n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2014.

"NSA/CSS Mission, Vision, Values." NSA. National Security Agency, n.d. Web. 2 Jan.

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