Domestic Surveillance By: Joshua Hedden

What is Domestic Surveillance? A legal investigative process entailing a close observing or listening to a person in effort to gather evidentiary information about the commission of a crime, or lesser improper behavior. Wiretapping, eavesdropping, shadowing, tailing, and electronic observation are all examples of this law-enforcement technique. So who controls Domestic Surveillance in the U.S.?

NSA (National Security Agency) What is the NSA? The NSA is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. Government communications and information systems, which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography. FISA – America's Surveillance Act, describes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of data/information.

Phone Monitoring Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit filed in It is alleged in the lawsuit that in , AT&T permitted and assisted the NSA to install a system in its switching centers in certain major cities. This was capable of monitoring billions of bits of Internet traffic a second, including the playback of telephone calls routed on the Internet, and thus in effect spying upon the entirety of the communication of many or all American citizens and businesses who use the Internet. In July 2008, Congress passed, and on July 10, 2008, President George Bush signed, the FISA Amendments Act, which granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies for the past violations of FISA.

More Info While campaigning against President George W. Bush, Barack Obama had pledged that there would be “no more wiretapping of American citizens,” but Obama's administration has continued to use many of Bush's arguments when it comes to warrant less wiretapping. The instances of U.S. law-enforcement agencies monitoring electronic communications such as phone calls, s and even social network updates without a warrant has increased by as much as 60 percent in the past 2 years under president Obama. Video The Data Storage: VideoVideo

Wiretapping How easy is it today? The government can legally collect the data about who and when you call or instant message, because of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act passed in Today our technology has far more advanced beyond this act where from the feds to local cops, all that law enforcers need in order to obtain an order allowing surveillance is to file a procedural request with a judge certifying that the information will be used in conjunction with a criminal investigation.

Surveillance Drones Video

Surveillance Satellites In 2007 U.S. Intelligence agencies had approved the use of spy satellites for domestic purposes. These satellites are capable of observing targets around the globe in daylight and darkness, able to penetrate clouds and identify underground structures. The true capabilities are not known but it is believed you could zoom in on items as small as a human fist from hundreds of miles away. Six surveillance satellites were released in 2011, estimated cost of more than $3 billion dollars.

OnStar What is OnStar? A subsidiary of General Motors, it provides a subscription based in- vehicle security, hands free calling, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems. What can OnStar do? The key things I want to point out are remote door unlock/lock and tracking the vehicle. Use as surveillance device? It is possible for OnStar to be remotely activated by third parties or under government order. This would enable third parties to track the location of the car, along with the ability to listen to the contents of any conversations by the occupants within the car. The FBI has denied the ability to use this because it disables OnStar's safety features. OnStar says all this is not possible without the knowledge of the occupant.

Conclusion So the bottom line is a lack of proportion between benefits and risks. This technology has the potential to do so many things but carries real dangers of abuse and has to have a line drawn somewhere. Certain acts and civil liberties have been crossed already without citizens even knowing so even if that line is drawn its hard to say our government won't cross it anytime they feel the need to.

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