National Security Agency Vs NSA

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On 9/11/2001, The United States was attacked by a Terrorist group by the name of Al Qaeda, and ever since then internet privacy has never been the same. A bill was passed by the name” USA PATRIOT Act” which in short is The U.S. government claims that government surveillance protects ordinary citizens while tracking down domestic threats.( USA Patriot Act. Pub. L. 107-56. 115 USA Patriot Act. Pub. L. 107-56. 115) However, some of the government's surveillance methods have violated American citizens' constitutional rights to privacy. The NSA, also known as the National Security Agency, which sole purpose is to collect, monitor and process vast amounts of data of which are both foreign and domestic. In hopes to prevent another, domestic and/or …show more content…

“The NSA doesn’t rely on James Bond-style spy gear, instead it uses quite simple methods to bug hardware. Instead the NSA exploit weaknesses in the architecture of the Internet to deliver malicious software to specific computers, as well as taking advantage of weakness in the hardware or software that is being distributed by some of the leading information technology companies. If the NSA decided to track a target they had their eye and their target orders a new computer or some type of electronic accessories it could tap in allies such as the FBI and CIA and intercept the hardware and very discretely fill it with the espionage software before being sent on its way.” (Horowitz, Alana, 2013) One of the most recent revelations was that the NSA was 100% fully capable of spying on Microsoft Corp’s crash reports, this crash report is a box that pops up when a program decides to stop working and gives you the option to send a file to Microsoft so that software engineers can looking into why that program is crashing in efforts to improve their product and fix the annoying bugs in their software. Microsoft states it “does not provide any government with direct or unfettered access to our customer data.” (Horowitz, Alana, 2013) But …show more content…

The NSA in attempting to regain the trust of those companies. “Many Americans have complexly trust in the government is making the difficult task of public-private cooperation against cyber-threats even more difficult.” (Nakashima, 2013)The director of NSA, Gen. Keith B. Alexander is working tersely to restore confidence in his agency, the agency has taken quite a bit of beating in wake of the leaks and the if it’s even possible to trust a government agency that openly admits it steals our personal information. “But at public speaking warns that cyberattacks on such critical and technology-dependent industries as energy, finance and transportation can be prevented only if those industries work with the government. Alexander also stresses to congress that a “cyber-legislation” to encourage private companies to share data on cyber threats. “(Nakashima, 2013) “In 2006 the NSA was able to obtain a top secret court permission that allows the agency to gathers virtually every single phone record of all Americans, literally billions of calls, only to search for clues to terrorist attacks. But there was also another leak that detailed a couple of internet tech giants such as google and yahoo also cooperated under court order to allow the agency to collect e-mails, and other digital data from lawful foreign targets.”

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