{"id":22568,"date":"2013-06-14T10:05:55","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T15:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=22568"},"modified":"2013-06-14T10:05:55","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T15:05:55","slug":"government-intrusion-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2013\/06\/government-intrusion-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Government intrusion and privacy: some things to think about"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent revelations of the breadth and depth of the telecoms surveillance being conducted by the United States has been highlighting the extent to which communication is no longer private. This post discusses some matters that Caribbean and non-US Internet users especially, should be consider.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"TopUnless you have been wholly disconnected from international news over the last two weeks, we have been inundated with reports about the extent of the surveillance and spying being done by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Although from time to time we here at ICT Pulse have been discussing the fact that Internet privacy is an illusion<\/a>, and suggesting ways in which to improve your privacy online<\/a>, these recent revelations indicate a more pervasive (and government-sanctioned) programme exists. Hence it is opportune to revisit not just our thoughts on privacy and the Internet, but also some of the implications of those revelations.<\/p>\n

US telecoms surveillance in a nutshell<\/h3>\n

Through electronic surveillance projects, most notably one codenamed PRISM, the NSA has been collecting data from, inter alia<\/i>, telecoms companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, and from large internet properties, such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, YouTube, Skype and Apple (Source: US Today<\/a>). When news about PRISM was made public, some of companies sought to refute claims that the NSA was collecting the data \u201cdirectly from the servers\u201d. However, subsequent reports have suggested that the US government has indeed been getting access to user content (Source: The Guardian UK<\/a>).<\/p>\n

To defuse some of the outcry that occurred in the US when the story broke, the government revealed that its surveillance has been geared primarily towards identifying potential threats to America. The data it receives from various sources (such as those indicated above) was being stored, and would be referred to as and when needed (Source: CNN<\/a>).<\/p>\n

With regard to voice calls, the US government indicated that it collects the metadata of those transactions, and did not necessarily listen in on people\u2019s conversations. However, the metadata, while not capturing the actual content of persons\u2019 interactions, can provide enough information to deduce the nature of those conversations, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> outlines below:<\/p>\n

\u2026What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata\u2014the details about phone calls, without the actual voice\u2014isn’t a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let’s take a closer look at what they are saying:<\/p>\n