NSA, FBI Mining Data Directly From Major Internet Companies, Report Says - 0 views
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Laura Alonso on 08 Jun 13This article by Jaikumar Vijayan from CIO.com is very interesting because it provides a challenging question between personal privacy and public security. The government program code-named PRISM is the motive in which the government is using to gather statistical information. In my opinion, extreme privacy without scrutiny is not more valuable than the safety of Americans or other would-be victims. I don't think it is completely accurate that the stated companies such as Google, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. don't provide the "back door" for government agencies because they have loyalty to both consumers and the government. Completely free reign and unfettered access to government agencies is a stretch, but to say security agencies have absolutely no right to look for evidence or track suspicious activity for relevant threats and possible attacks is completely unfounded and uneducated. It would be a much larger folly for governments to not track terrorist activities and let their networks run free then to not study behaviors and contacts. Otherwise, people of bad intentions would communicate easily and freely without consequences and proper agencies have no leg-up on potentially dangerous situations. The American people have their right to privacy, but the founding fathers never could have imagined a world where it is so easy to exchange information, tactics or events so quickly. Even contemporary technical analysts and engineers couldn't fathom the technology we have now just 30 years before the internet became publicly accessible. And if they did it is safe to assume they're security measures would have been the priority of American lives than somebody scared of having their facebook messages or Google e-mail snooped on. After all, if you're not a terrorist, and surely you aren't if you're reading this, what is there to hide?