Government Surveillance

David Teter, Passages I

Introduction
In todays world, criminals are becoming increasingly advanced and devious, terrorists
groups threaten the security of many nations, thus governments have resorted to use of
extensive government monitoring and surveillance. This monitoring may take the form of mass
metadata collection from mobile phone carriers, or it may be thousands of security cameras
distributed around a city. While these methods may or may not be effective in keeping citizens
safer, they pose several other problems. Organizations such as the EFF, Electronic Frontier
Foundation, and ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, are concerned with the privacy and
rights of our citizens. They argue that the surveillance practices are not just immoral, but also
unconstitutional. . While a certain level of government surveillance is necessary, excessive
government surveillance infringes on the rights of citizens and has great potential for misuse.
Government surveillance is far from being a modern invention. In fact governments
have spied on their citizens since the classical era. Persian kings spied on lower-down officials
using agents known simply as they eyes and ears of the king. (Bentley, 136). In addition,
Egyptian Pharaohs used spies to find disloyal subjects and have them removed. During the
middle ages, Henry VIII created a large secret police force to find Catholic loyalists that were in
hiding (Lerner, Espionage and Intelligence: Early: Historical Foundations).
History of Government Surveillance
Over time government surveillance evolved and became a far more commonly used tool,
during the 20th century, government surveillance became much more advanced and also
significantly more common. Throughout WWI president Wilson monitored citizens using a
variety of different methods in order to isolate individuals who were against the war. The person
they were most concerned with was Eugene V. Debs, an author with ties to the communist party
(World Wars - Government surveils its People). The espionage act during WWI gave the U.S.
postal service authorization to open any letter that they deemed fit. However, the postmaster
general was tasked with executing this surveillance. He exercised his new found power with a
heavy hand and had his subordinates look out for anything that went against the U.S.
government. (Patrick Maney NSA Surveillance, Echoes of WWI) The Nazis used magnetic
tape devices (purchased from Thomas Edison) to monitor their citizens during WWII. The U.S.
monitored phone communications between Japan and the U.S. during WWII (Tony Wu, World
Wars - Government surveils its People).
After WWII subsided, government surveillance became more common on a global scale.
During the height of Soviet power in East Germany, the Stasi (the secret police force of East
Germany) employed over 2.5% of the countrys population (Koehler, 4-11). In the U.S., the NSA

was founded by secret executive order, the idea being to consolidate many different WWII
agencies into one surveillance and intelligence force.
As time progressed, government surveillance became more and more advanced and
sophisticated. A government program called COINTELPRO was launched, the objective of this
FBI conducted program was to gather intel on and hinder the actions of political bodies that
were un-American, these organization included the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party,
and several anti-war groups. It is estimated that almost 20,000 individuals were monitored by
COINTELPRO (Paul Wolf, COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story). Individuals were
monitored if they had any ties to certain organizations. Individuals could be wiretapped and
monitored simply for signing a petition to eliminate poll-tax (Studs Terkel, The Wiretap This
Time). In the end, COINTELPRO was unable to connect any of the above parties to communist
Russia, but it did aid in the execution of several FBI operations with questionable legality,
including the assassination of Black Panther leadership based on trumped up charges, and the
funding of a Neo-Natzi group to murder members of the Communist Party COINTELPRO (Paul
Wolf, COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story). These events occurred in a time where there
was more regulation of intelligence agencies than there is now. With the current power of
national intelligence organizations, even larger abuses of power could occur.
Government Surveillance in the U.S
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, congress passed a bill called the USA Patriot Act which
stands for: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to
Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The Act gives the government enormous power to monitor
and surveil without a warrant from a court. Section 216 of the act allows the FBI to monitor
almost any electronic device with little to no judicial supervision. This creates great potential for
abuse of the Act. It also unconstitutional, the constitution states that police must have a warrant
to conduct a search, and since the Patriot Act does not require a specific warrant, it is
unconstitutional (American Civil Liberties Union, Reform the Patriot Act). While protecting our
people is important, the constitution is the core pillar of our country, by violating the constitution,
the Patriot Act makes America a country not worth protecting anymore.
The government surveillance activities conducted by the FBI are insignificant when
compared with the National Security Agencys extremely extensive government monitoring and
surveillance program. While the exact figures are unknown, it is estimated that the NSA has an
annual budget of well over $10 billion per year (Sahadi, What the NSA costs taxpayers). A set
of documents leaked in 2013 detail the extent to which the NSA went to conduct electronic
surveillance. These documents show that the NSA intercepted mass shipments of electronic
products in-transit and modified them to include NSA backdoors. This was often done without
involvement of the manufacturer, and most of the time it was done by an agent inserted into the
company by the NSA (Sean Gallagher, Your USB cable, the spy). However, most of the data
that the NSA collects is collected from large providers like Yahoo, Apple, and Google (Glenn

Greenwald, NSA program taps). For the most part, data collection is simply a matter of the
NSA requesting it. Some companies are more cooperative than others. For example, Verizon
Wireless has been notoriously co-operative with the NSA. A large portion of the Data that the
NSA collects is housed in its Utah Data Center facility. The Facility is one million square feet
and cost over 1.5 billion dollars (NSA.org, Utah Data Center). An agency this powerful and well
organized could do serious damage if they chose to, in its current state, the NSA could
potentially harm the country it is trying to protect, much like COINTELPRO did in the 1960s,
In addition to targeted surveillance, the NSA also engages in mass surveillance. James
Ball, a reporter for the Guardian states that Programs such as Prism which operates through
legally compelled "partnerships" with major internet companies allow the NSA to obtain
content and metadata on thousands of targets without individual warrants. Since 90% of all
internet traffic crosses the U.S., the NSA has the potential to spy on a massive amount of
internet traffic. President Obama has stated repeatedly that the NSA only collects metadata,
things such as: who is calling who, at what time, their location. Metadata is by definition, data
about data, this can manifest as browsing and phone history, and in some cases, even
passwords. The NSA collects 1826 petabytes of data per year (James Ball, NSA stores
metadata). One Petabyte of data is equal to about 15 years of HD video (Jesus Diaz, How
large is a petabyte?), or 126 times the data Facebook collects daily. While the NSA states that
they only touch 1.6% of all internet traffic, Jeff Jarvis points out that 62% of internet traffic is on
demand Media, and 10.2% of traffic is P2P file sharing. Communications, things such as email,
instant messaging and VOIP is only 2.9% of web traffic, so while the NSA may only touch 1.6%
of internet traffic, they interact with over half of all communications in the whole world. (James
Ball, NSA stores metadata). There is a 50% chance that when one individual in the world
communicates with another, the NSA is collecting metadata, or possibly more, on that
conversation.
Recently, Yahoo refused to hand over user data to the NSA, stating that such collection
was unconstitutional. The NSA responded by threatening to fine Yahoo $250,000 per day if they
did not comply with government demands. This began a long court battle between Yahoo and
the NSA which Yahoo eventually lost (Zetter, "Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for
Not Complying With PRISM | WIRED"). This ended up costing a major private business within
the U.S. a significant amount of revenue, and in turn damaging our economy. There have been
other cases where the NSA hurt the financial status of companies. The ACLU states that NSA
activities could cost the cloud computing industry 22-35 billion dollars (Michael German, NSA
Surveillance is bad for business) The economy of the United States is in a somewhat fragile
state at the moment, and the tampering caused by our intelligence organizations is damaging it
even more.
Facebook has also started to resist the NSAs attempts to collect data on users. While
Facebook has a long tradition of turning data over to the government for criminal investigations,
for unknown reasons, they have recently become more concerned with the mass data collection

that the government is currently taking part in. In the first half of 2014, Facebook reported that
the amount of government requests for data rose by 23%. In response, they have begun a
lawsuit against the government, specifically concerning a request for the data from 400
accounts (Linshi, Government Requests for Facebook).
Twitter has also been doing its part to combat government surveillance. The company
has been releasing bi-annual reports on the amount of FISA requests they receive. However,
due to strict regulations, they are not allowed to publish exact numbers, only very broad number
ranges such as 0-999 . Twitter would like to publish broader number sets and is thus beginning
a lawsuit against the government. Twitter believes that they are allowed under the 1st
amendment to publish the data. The NSA disagrees, they believe that Twitter releasing the
exact numbers would be a threat to national security (Ellen Nakashima, Twitter Sues the U.S.
government over limits on ability to disclose surveillance orders).
In 2012 Edward Snowden, an employe at the time of a contractor that worked for the
NSA, released a large collection of documents detailing the surveillance actions of the NSA.
These documents revealed the extent of the NSAs surveillance program, as well as the
potential for abuse. In an interview, snowden stated that during his time at the NSA, he, as a
low level systems engineer, had the power to wiretap or spy on almost anyone in the U.S.,
including potentially the president (Praxis Films, "PRISM Whistleblower"). If even low level
employees have such great power, there will be cases of abuse. This could result in blackmail,
fraud, any number of unwanted activities. Even if the low level employees dont abuse it, what if
executives did? What if a president ordered the NSA to sabotage his/her political rivals
campaign? If the NSAs surveillance continues to grow, abuse will eventually happen. In fact,
abuse on a small scale has already occurred. A leak details how employees of the NSA would
share good phone sex recordings with each other, this went on for some time before it was
stopped. One employe, remembers being told by fellow employes to listen to the calls of
American citizens for entertainment purposes (Gorski "New NSA Documents Shine More Light
into Black Box of Executive Order 12333").
Other countries were understandably concerned when the nature and extent of the NSA
surveillance program was revealed. Germany was so concerned that the government
terminated its contract with Verizon wireless, as they were concerned that the data of German
officials could be handed to the NSA (Peterson "German government to drop Verizon over NSA
spying fears"). More recently, the CIA station chief was asked to leave the country. This
espionage tactic is often employed by rival countries, but rarely by countries that are such close
allies (Miller "Germany orders CIA station chief to leave over spying allegations"). The current
surveillance activities of the U.S. government are damaging foreign relationships and
weakening alliances, making enemies does little to protect the U.S.
Part of the reason for cases of abuse within the NSA is a lack of regulation, in October of
2014 the ACLU obtained Executive Order 12333 by use of the Freedom of Information Act. This

executive order was instituted by President Reagan in 1981, it hasnt been subjected to serious
oversight by congress. Since this order is so veiled in secrecy, the people really dont have a
say. In essence EO 12333 allows any U.S. intelligence agency to collect whatever it wants on
whomever it wishes. While the Patriot Act states exactly what the NSA may collect and what it
may not, EO 12333 mentions no such restriction. It also places no limits on how much data
may be collected. In addition, EO 12333 allows intelligence agencies to collect data without a
court order or even presidential oversight. It also allows intelligence organizations to keep any
data that was collected by accident. While this may seem insignificant, it is a massive legal
loophole, and has been used to to justify the collection of petabytes of data. John Napier Tye,
a reporter and former employe of the U.S government, states that EO 12333 isnt even the
worst document, however he cannot release other documents due to legal implications (John
Napier Tye, Meet Executive order 12333). He says:
I was cleared to receive top-secret and sensitive compartmented information. Based in part
on classified facts that I am prohibited by law from publishing, I believe that Americans should
be even more concerned about the collection and storage of their communications under
Executive Order 12333 than under Section 215, (John Napier Tye, Meet Executive order
12333).
Recently, the FBI director suggested that the law be changed to require manufacturers
to be required to integrate a backdoor into mobile devices so that government agencies could
access data whenever they wanted, even retroactively. This would make the surveillance
activities of the NSA even easier to conduct and create more potential for misuse. In addition, it
poses a security threat. If there is a universal backdoor into every device, what is to stop a
hacker or other criminal from gaining access. In an effort to prevent crime, the FBI is likely
making cybercrime even easier (Schoenburg "FBI Says Surveillance Tabs Should Be Added to
Devices"). In response to repeated demands by the NSA to decrypt phones of their suspects,
Google and Apple have responded by instituting device wide encryption on the newest versions
of their operating systems (Miller "Google and Apple encryption by default"). This makes it
impossible for them to comply with government demands, even if they wanted to. The NSA
would have to know a user set password in order to access any data.
Government Surveillance in China
However, the U.S. is not the only country that has a rapidly expanding and evolving
government surveillance program. China, another major world power, is also slowly becoming a
surveillance state. In recent years, the government has installed more than 20 million cameras
around the country. (Langfitt, In China: Beware). Frank Langfitt interviewed Li Ti tiantian, a
lawyer in Shanghai. She is so concerned about being watched by the police that she meets
visitors after dark in a grove of trees behind her house. She also makes here visitors take their

cell phones and place them in a separate room. Since Li has spoken out against the
surveillance practices, all manner of undesirable things have happened to her. They revoked
her lawyers license, and tried to force her to move from Shanghai. When she refused, they
attempted to get her boyfriend to break up with her by showing him surveillance tapes of her
and previous men she had been involved with walking into hotel rooms. Li Tiantian also
believes that many people to not realize the extent of the surveillance in China. She says:
Many people have been deceived by the government, they think this government is OK and it
wouldn't do such dirty, disgusting and shameful things. I feel they are all like poisonous snakes.
I fear them and hate them. (Langfitt, In China: Beware)
Another case of very focused government monitoring is that of Liu Xiaobo, a professor at
Beijing University. He has been a critic of the government for some time. He signed a
document named charter 08, which was modeled after charter 77, the document which helped
end single party rule in Czechoslovakia. He participated in several pro democracy protests,
including the one in Tiananmen in 1989, where his cousin died from a gunshot. Since then, he is
constantly followed by police, his phone is tapped, and during certain times, such as for the two
months after he received his nobel peace prize, he is not permitted to leave the country (Murong
Xuecun, The Transparent Chinese).
Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch stationed in Hong Kong states
that the ultimate goal of the communist party is to build a network of cameras that would allow
them to track any enemies of the state in real time. The early stages of this technology have
already been implemented at immigration checkpoints. Bequelin says that this would allow the
party to prevent the emergence of any challenge to the party in the short and long term, (Frank
Langfitt, In China: Beware).
There is no argument that the surveillance network has reduced the amount of crime in
China. It has been used to solve almost 6,000 crimes in Shanghai, and track and kill a serial
killer in the city of Chongqing. However, as they reduce crime, they increase oppression. Last
year the government began installing cameras in university class rooms. They stated that the
cameras exist to prevent cheating, but Liu Xin, a professor of administrative law at Beijing
University says that these cameras are actually tools for finding teachers that say things
contrary to the government (Frank Langfitt, In China: Beware).
A large portion of the software in China may actually be working for the government. A
report by Reporters Without Borders details how the Chinese government has been modifying
software to spy on its citizens. For example, the popular product QQ, a social networking
program, includes a trojan horse that spies on users messages. In January, Tencent, the
company that owns the popular SMS and voice message service WeChat, changed its policy so
that users must submit their identities in order to get an account. Even Skype is monitored in

China. When a user attempts to download Skype in China they are redirected to the page for
Tom Skype. TomSkype is exactly the same as the version of skype that the rest of the world
uses except for one key difference. TomSkype includes a small modification that blocks certain
words and phrases. In addition, the government can access the chat records of any individual
they wish to. These monitoring utilities make many citizens unwilling to criticize the government
for fear of being monitored and found. In addition, the government can acquire the IP address
of any TomSkype user. Since internet users are required to register using an ID and their street
address, the government knows exactly who is saying what (China - Enemies of the Internet,
RSF.org).
The Cost of Government Surveillance
Government surveillance has been proven extremely beneficial for governments to
accomplish their objectives. Police traffic cameras have proven extremely useful and are
generally accepted now as part of our everyday lives. The chinese government has stated that
their extensive camera network is used to solve 8000 crimes per year, including a series of
murders by a serial killer (China - Enemies of the Internet, RSF.org. However, these benefits
seem trivial when compared to the potential costs of government surveillance. As the amount of
mass surveillance increases, the privacy of citizens decreases. No one wants to live in a
society in which everything you do or say is monitored and recorded. The practice of monitoring
has been extremely effective in silencing the critics of the Chinese government. There is an
entire amendment in our constitution that attempts to protect citizens from unlawful searches
and seizures. This was created to protect the privacy of citizens, something that is a
fundamental part of the USA, and which is being violated by the activities of the PRISM
surveillance program.
Even if the privacy invasion caused by extensive mass surveillance is not inherently
harmful, it creates great potential for abuse and wrongdoing. In China, surveillance tapes have
been used to blackmail and suppress critics of the government, as we saw in the case of Li
Tiantian. While mass surveillance in China has helped to solve crimes, it has also made free
speech almost entirely impossible. In the U.S. there have already been several cases of people
within the NSA using the powers of the organization to further their personal goals. Even the
relatively mild case of the good phone sex occurrence shows that abuse does happen within
the NSA.
In the past, government surveillance has been used for a number of illegal activities,
such as the raids against civil rights groups in the 1950s and 60s by the FBI. Considering that
compared the the FBI, the NSA is even more powerful and more unregulated, they might
commit all manner of immoral acts. On a similar note, president Nixon used the FBI to spy on
his opponents during the famous Watergate scandal. Thus, it is entirely possible that an
individual with a large amount of political power could use the NSA to further their own personal
goals. The United States government has had many previous instances of abuse, and with an

organization as large, powerful, and unregulated as the NSA is now, even larger cases of abuse
are bound to happen.
The real problem is not the power of the NSA, but the lack of regulation and outside
oversight. The NSA has little legal oversight except for internal people. Even the Senate
Intelligence Committee is unaware of many of the NSA activities. This lack of information also
creates a lack of choice for American citizens. Edward snowden has stated that the American
people deserve the right to decide what policies the NSA should and should not conduct. What
use is protecting a country, if in protecting it, you destroy the very ideals you are attempting to
defend? The second problem is lack of regulation and transparency. Things like EO 12333
allow the NSA to do almost anything. This needs to change. The NSA needs regulation on
exactly what they can and cannot do, and shouldnt be allowed to self regulate. This would cut
down on cases of abuse and prevent major cases of abuse that could occur in the future. In
addition, we need more transparency, we are a country that is designed to be run by the people,
but if the people must rely on whistleblowers in order to gain information, they cannot make an
informed decision. I am certainly not suggesting that the NSA release every document, some of
that could actually endanger their operations, but people deserve to know basic facts and
policies. Things like, how long the NSA keeps information, what kind of people they are spying
on, and exactly what they are collecting.
In China, government surveillance is making people afraid to speak out against the
government. While freedom of speech and information is an essential right of citizens, granting
this right will be almost impossible in the current political state of China. This is part of a larger
problem in China that has to do with corruption and lack of democracy. Without first reducing
corruption and instituting a more democratic society, elimination or reduction of government
surveillance is nearly impossible. For China to become intellectually free, a number of other
issues must be fixed first.

Conclusion
Government surveillance certainly has its benefits, but as they say, anything in the right
quantity is a poison. It is ultimately not worth the cost to maintain a mass national surveillance
network, especially one that has no freedom and oversight. The amount of government
surveillance in the U.S. is increasing and needs to be stopped, and reversed, while still
maintaining enough surveillance to keep our nation and its people safe.
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