Make room for Big Brother.

Mark Treiber

Hutchinson

English II-H (3)

13 March 2003

Make room for Big Brother

The majority of us have at least once in out lives read George Orwell’s 1984. The idea of this long time classic about a man living in a society with no privacy from the leader Big Brother is closer than you think. Weather we know it or not, we are watched everyday. Most people know this but they do not know the true extent of this surveillance, or more so the limitations of their privacy. You are never the only person to know about something you do in private, there is no such a thing as privacy anymore, it have been violated by spy satellites, surveillance cameras, hidden cameras, telephone taps, audio bugs, ECHELON, or by the FBI’s Carnivore program. When the local police want to search a persons house what is required? We all know the answer is a warrant. But higher branches are not required to have warrants to gather information on a person by invasion of Internet privacy, or to monitor all telecommunications ever sent. Do not get the wrong idea from these facts though, governments are not the only ones invading our privacy, it also corporations wanting the publics business or perverted camera operators. Your privacy is gone, nonetheless. What you may learn from this may shock you, scare you, and may even cause paranoia. Read at your own disturbance.

Do you have any secrets that you would never want anyone to know? It is a fact that we all have skeletons in our closet, but what if the closet door was not shut as tightly as we thought? Anywhere you go cameras are everywhere, on the inside and outside of

buildings. May it be one of those dome cameras in Wal-Mart or a hidden camera in your

own home that you don’t know about? It was reported by Popular Science writer Mary

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Behr that, “There are at least 2,400 outdoor surveillance cameras in Manhattan alone, many of them installed my corporations, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.” (Behr, Mary, “All eyes are on you”) Satellites play the most important roll in the government’s programs used to breech out privacy. There are two types of satellites, one is the telecommunication satellite that bounces our telephone calls, emails, and faxes all around the globe, and the second type are government spy satellites. Telecommunication satellites are the true “Chink in the Armor” in out privacy protection. The NSA’s ECHELON program utilizes this weakness and intercepts all data transferred by these global satellites. In October 2002 when the Washington DC Sniper was at large, it was reported that the government was able to help identify details about the snipers vehicle by satellite imaging. If this technology can be used in this scenario then why can it not be used everyday? Although the number and capabilities of government spy satellites cannot be disclosed do know they exist. If one is curious one can visit and access aerial photography of practically anywhere in the Unites States, and a few other countries. Keep in mind that is available to the public.

When you make a telephone call you presume that you and the person on the other end of the conversation are the only ones that are listening, that is except the occasional eaves dropping of your younger sibling. This is indeed a false sense of security though. AT&T processes 175 million telephone calls on an average

business day, and every one of these is run thorough the NSA’s ECHELON network.

Now keep in mind that is only through AT&T, other telephone companies exist. The

NSA started the ECHELON project after the end of the Cold War. Simply put ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

business day, and every one of these is run thorough the NSA’s ECHELON network.

Now keep in mind that is only through AT&T, other telephone companies exist. The

NSA started the ECHELON project after the end of the Cold War. Simply put it is a

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network of globally located computer systems that scan all telecommunications for keywords listed in the different ECHELON dictionaries. An ECHELON dictionary is a list of questionable words looked for by certain ECHELON allies. Nicky Hagar said in his book SECRET POWER, “It potentially affects every person communicating between (and sometimes within) countries anywhere in the world “. (Hagar, Nicky Exposing the Global Surveillance System) The ECHELON network has allies in the UK, and New Zealand to name a few. Despite the UK’s participation, many UK news networks and other European businesses have accused the United States for using ECHELON to its advantage in corporate matters, and in setting about in industrial espionage. In response to such matters and accusations, the NSA has revealed that this surveillance network is not used to gather military information, but rather to target those in the public arousing suspicion. ECHELON is not he only system like itself though. Russia has two surveillance agencies that we know of. One of these agencies the “Federal Security Service” posses’ powers to monitor Internet traffic just like our FBI. Its other branch is the ‘Federal Agency for Government Communication’ is said to have “unlimited technical capabilities for monitoring communications and gathering intelligence”. (“Echelon’s counterparts”) Other countries such as The People’s Republic of China, Germany, Israel, France and India all have surveillance agencies similar to ECHELON in their government. Within the last few years the FBI has started to not get information

from people’s computers with a warrant but rather will go directly to the suspects Internet

Service Provider (ISP). This in fact can be considered a violation of ones civil liberties.

This is even truer because according to the law at this time, when someone signs up for

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an internet account they are not required to give information such as their name before they sign up for an account, and more importantly most ISP’s are willing to provide an anonymous internet account to those who request it. At this point it is obvious one who signs up for such an account is concerned about their privacy and revealing their identity, but the government is now taking away that “piece of mind” that the consumer once had by having an anonymous online alias. David Banisar co-author of The Electronic Papers says, “Administration unwisely wants to make it easier to obtain people’s identities, trace their movements online, and apply wiretapping to the Internet.” (McCullagh, Declan “U.S. Wants to Trace Net Users”) This want to take away privacy of the Internet from all to prevent the bad actions of a few has worked itself into a

“Catch .22”. The two options are, either take away innocent citizen’s privacy on the Internet, or to continue to let criminals have the ability to remain totally anonymous, at their fingertips. This problem not only affects the consumer but the ISP as well. If consumers knew that their ISP was providing the authorities with information regarding their online activity, they very well may discontinue to use that service. A few ISP’s have agreed to let the government install monitoring software etc. and these few are trying to promote the program to other companies, but still the majority of ISP’s refuse to cooperate, under some circumstances still, some companies are forced to release information. So even if you are not under suspicion your Internet Provider might be

required to release all information regarding your online activity. Including all websites

visited, e-mails read, and conversations made.

Many times we have watched the television police shows and always notice that

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Police usually have a warrant with them to enable them to search a persons house. This seems fair, then why can this just system be used in all circumstances? In the last decade the FBI has meticulously been working on developing software to filter, track, and record Internet activity of the public. Richard Diamond, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey said “We need to make sure this isn’t used as an excuse to set up a big brother monitoring program. ‘Real-time tracing of Internet communications’ sounds an awful lot like a proposal to put backdoors in the latest revision of the Internet protocol itself”. (McCullagh, Declan “U.S. Wants to Trace Net Users”) What this man had to say is in do doubt the truth, if every time a new freedom is given to the public the government restricts it, Big Brother no doubt on his way. The current carnivore is actually the third generation of Internet tracking and filtering software. Information on he first generation of this evolution has not been released, but has been it has been rumored that it actually is commercially available software going by the name of EtherPeek. Sometime in 1997 the FBI officially released and put into action the second generation of the programs, Omnivore. Finally in 1999 the FBI adopted a series of programs known as the DragonWare Suite. All the public knows about this Software Suite is that it consists of 3 separate programs, Carnivore, Packeteer, and Coolminer. At the time we do not have any information on what either Packeteer, or Coolminer do but we do know that Carnivore is a packet-sniffing program. This means that a filter is used to filter out any targeted information passing through the computer network that the filter

is told to capture. All though this technology is not new, the fashion that the FBI is using

this software is its advantage. The most advantageous tactic they are using is they are

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attempting to persuade the majority of Internet providers to agree to run Carnivore on their networks. Many have declined this request for the reason that they feel it will slow the network down. One ISP however has agreed to not only runt he software on their network but promotes the software to other ISP’s, this ISP however is keeping its identity anonymous.

Now that the privacy breech cause by government’s has been covered, the issue of others invading our privacy still must be discussed. According to an article written by Mary Behr, there are no current federal laws protecting the privacy of our medical files. In this article it was said that if someone tests positive for the HIV virus, hundreds of people and companies could be informed of this before the patient himself knows. Another issue of out privacy is out protection on the Internet. Identity fraud and theft is more prevalent today that it ever has been. This is a result of the technologically advanced world we live in now. I personally know someone who has been the victim of identity theft and it is far worse than it sounds. She told me that thousands of dollars of her heart earned money had been carelessly spent on pornography. Another common problem with computer security is the misuse and abuse of administration privileges in private companies. Many companies have been reported for using what’s called keyloggers to record everything an employee types, enabling them to acquire bank account numbers and passwords, and passwords to personal e-mail accounts.

To conclude, what is being done as safety measures for our country, and for

Companies can often jeopardize the public’s privacy. These security measures are indeed

good, but it is their abuse and misuse that can lead to havoc. In this new age of

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technology it is getting easier for computer hackers to gain access to these security measures used by out government. It must be taken into consideration that any power that initially is used for good can fall into the wrong hand and be used for the opposite reason it was developed. The new surveillance techniques used today need to be used more carefully; not only to prevent its misuse but also, to make sure that the privacy of the innocent is not invaded. Now knowing of the little privacy that actually exists, be careful of what is ever said over the phone, in e-mail, or in a fax. You indeed are never the only one to read it.