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An analysis of 225 terrorism cases inside the United States since the September 11 attacks concludes that the bulk collection of data by the NSA has “had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.” A White House-appointed review group supported this claim and found that the NSA counterterrorism program “was not essential to preventing attacks” and that much of the evidence it did turn up “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional orders.” Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case. It would seem that with this incredible amount of data collection done in the name of national security, the NSA would be extremely effective at protecting American security. This Digital Network Intelligence (as the NSA defines it) covers “nearly everything a typical user does on the internet,” including, web sites visited, addresses typed into Google Maps and files sent. Using a program known as XKeyscore, the NSA can monitor Internet traffic. Through the NSA’s PRISM program, major companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, Youtube and Apple provide users’ emails, social networking messages and instant messages to the NSA upon request. Audio recordings of these calls can be provided if the call is to or from the United States or if one of the parties engaging in the call is suspected of being involved in international terrorism. Every day, service providers such as Verizon, AT&T and Sprint turn over billions of calls that have been stored for up to five years. While citizens argue that this infringement of privacy goes beyond the constitutional, the Agency argues that it is a necessary invasion to ensure the country’s security.Īccording to a 2013 ProPublica analysis, the NSA collects four main types of data: metadata of phone calls, Internet communications, Internet traffic and selected audio recordings of phone calls.

Recently, the NSA has been plagued by more than a few scandals regarding its dragnet collection of Americans’phone records and other online communications. After some questionable Google searches for this article, some in-depth readings on anonymity browsers, and an accidental download of a view at your own risk PDF entitled “ Basically everything you need to know about Tor,” I’m confident that I am now considered an “extremist” and my IP address is included in national security databases. There’s a pretty good chance I’m being tracked by the NSA.