Government Survelance
Everyone has probably seen those people walking around with those shirts that say "I Read Your Email", but does one ever stop to think, "Who really does read my email besides myself?" This may be a question that people should start asking themselves. With today's technology and the government's ever-growing need to increase national security, email and other web-based documents may not be as private as one may think. Although controversial, some government surveillance of electronic communications plays an important role in national security. In today's technical world, there are many ways to communicate with others. With the uprising of the Internet in recent years, people have the world at their fingertips. Research is easier than ever to accomplish, and communication is easier and more fun. This technology is wonderful in the fact that it makes our lives easier. The problem is that it is making it too easy for criminals to communicate and plot their plans. These "cyber-crimes" are at an unbelievable high, and show no sign of slowing down. Crimes like terrorism, espionage, information warfare, child pornography, and serious fraud are all rising in occurrences, due in part to the Internet. The Internet makes it easy f
In many people's eyes, to be able to monitor all types of communication that criminals could use is a great achievement. However, others find it to be an invasion of privacy. Organizations like the ACLU find it offensive that the government has the ability to monitor its citizen's emails. They compare it to a "Big Brother" type of instance (Lyon 180). While it is easy to see their point, one must keep in focus the number of fugitives that use email to communicate. By having this system, the potential to save many lives exists. While the information that the FBI currently views and uses is very helpful, it still may not be enough. The Carnivore is capable of doing much more and possibly saving many more lives. This very thing was demonstrated on September 11, 2001. In his statement on the world wide threat in the year 2000, the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet testified that terrorist groups including Bin Laden, and his al Qa'ida organization are using computerized files, email, and encryption to support their operations. Even though the FBI knew this, they could not legally intercept those emails and prosecute with them. Had they been able to do this, the attacks on September 11, 2001, may have been prevented. "We believe that the American public should have trust in the FBI's conduct of electronic surveillance, principally because it has an outstanding record of lawfully complying with the Federal electronic surveillance laws which the Congress first enacted over thirty years ago, in 1968." (FBI 9) The Carnivore is a series of computers that when networked together are able to monitor all information that passes over the Internet. Whether it is the email that shows up in a persons "inbox," or the sites that are available for viewing, the Carnivore "sees" it all. "The Carnivore device provides the FBI with a "surgical" ability to intercept and collect the communications which are the subject of the lawful order while ignoring
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Approximate Word count = 1331
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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