Many people around the world use social media sites. However, many do not realize that governments are able to use surveillance programs to spy on them. According to MerriamWebster dictionary, surveillance is the close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal and it can be defined as processes of information collection and processing. Surveillance on social media has its positives and negatives and people should know how to use it responsibly, critically and effectively. Surveillance programs endanger the privacy of each Internet user.
The reason that surveillance is accepted is because it can help governments find terrorists and can help solve crimes. However, it is a concern for multiple people that there is no law or regulation on how governments are able to use the programs. Moreover, the surveillance programs are sold off the shelf to governments so any government can have easy access to them (Soghoian, 2014). The majority of countries has the technical capability to intercept calls, records them and monitors them whether it was made on a landline or mobile phone. Additionally, they are able to locate people from their mobile phones and determine his or her movements.
On the other hand, a number of countries that are increasing who have the possibility to override computers and smartphones, enabling them to change its settings and monitor its activities. Once, any person is under suspicion for any crime and is subject to a formal investigation by any intelligence or law enforcement agency that person may become under online surveillance for counter terrorism and law enforcement purposes (Shulz, 2012). Social Media Surveillance softwares allows the user to monitor and collect data post to social media sites like facebook and twitter, regardless of the device used to post.
Surveillance softwares does have its benefits. For example, softwares increases the efficiency because of the automated surveillance and processing, is providing full analysis, and the capability to monitor all activity (Sungard, 2013). These programs give governments a lot of power and many governments abuse that power. According to a ted talk by Christopher Soghoian the Moroccan government uses these programs to spy on journalists, which is an abuse of power and controlling of what is heard, killing freedom of speech.
I agree with Soghoian’s argument that there should be laws to restrict government usage on these surveillance programs (Soghoian, 2014). The fact that there is no limit on how countries are able to use surveillance programs is concerning. This demolishes any sense of privacy to all Internet users all over the world. Around a year ago, the British governments admits for the first time that UK citizens, talking on allegedly private sites in social media such as Twitter direct messages, are watched by the British government and it would be legal for them to intercept communications with no warrant needed (Bowcott & Owen, 2014).
It may seem acceptable for a government to keep tabs on the public and gain knowledge on their opinions from conversation occurring online. Unfortunately, the idea that any member of public can be listed as person to be monitored, where there is no legislation stopping the government from digging deeply in the person social media and activities for reasons they do not need to justify, which is why there needs to be a law to prevent government from doing so. However, I do believe that there should be surveillance from governments on people with reasonable suspicion.
For instance, in 1967 there was a guy, last name Katz, was using a public pay to place illegal bets, which the FBI suspected. Therefore, they decided to place a microphone that taped his calls and was convicted of illegal gambling. However, in the Supreme Court Katz argued that he had a right to privacy on the phone and that having the government tape his calls in the booth was an illegal search, and the court agreed with him. In that case, the court was wrong as the FBI had reasonable doubt (Mirk, 2015). However, nowadays this is not the case because governments would abuse their power like the case of the journalists in Morocco.
Moreover, Facebook and Google set a cultural conversation about what privacy entails. For many, there’s more at risk than prices for clothing or a Chase Bank credit card. The consistent tracking is a civil right issue. Others may say that if you do not do anything illegal online, you do not have anything to worry about, but that doe not hold true for many societies (Potter, 2015). The Internet is a public place where people talk and share ideas like a public park or a town square, where people go nowadays to talk and share ideas. As there is privacy in town squares there should be privacy online.
We as people make action and as a culture, we should be able to define what privacy means and who can get to define it. Even sometimes when things are said online as joke can be taken seriously by law enforcements. For instance, police raided a house in Illinois because of a disabled parody Twitter account that described a local mayor with some profanity (Williams, 2014). Not only does online surveillance affect peoples rights of privacy, but it has also been shown that governments surveillance has impacted on America’s economy, the credibility of the government and the security of the internet (Zetter, 2014).
According to leaked NSA documents that show improper use of surveillance in the NSA that affects their credibility, including things like infecting computers to undermine companies routers, siphon mobile phones. In addition, they had worked with companies by installing backdoor programs in their products to decrypt them if they wanted to. To add to that, they have also intercepted products in the U. S. being sent overseas and installed spy equipment in those products before it reached the customer (Zetter, 2014).
Because of the actions of NSA it affected the U. S. economy because it affected business by spying on shipments. Consequently, many business stopped dealing with companies in the U. S. For instance, Brazil ended a 4. 5 billion dollar jet contract with an American company. Moroever, companies like Dropbox and Amazon have lost business to overseas companies like Artmotion, a Swiss company (Zetter, 2014). There are also ways to prevent yourself from surveillance, that anyone can do, which is negative considering that government rely on their software’s but some can use encryption on their devices.
In addition, to protect yourself from online surveillance, people can use public domains and there are also different software’s that can be used (Schneier, 2015). Since, there are ways for a person to prevent themselves from being spied, I would assume that terrorist and criminals are aware of these ways because they are easy to find on the internet, which is ironic because the government has surveillance on the internet. On the other hand, some might argue that government surveillance can be essential if used properly without any misuse like most governments do.
Online surveillance can be necessary because nowadays, new methods are needed to gather information, since technology has increased. There is no doubt that there are still threats that can use Internet surveillance to find criminals (Sulmasy, 2013). Overall, there should be a law to restrict government usage of surveillance software’s. Since, governments have access to this software’s and are allowed to do what they want with it they have been abusing it, which is why there should be restrictions.
Surveillance is necessary but it till needs some restriction to limit countries. Social media surveillance is an issue that should be resolved and I agree with Soghoian with what he said in his Ted Talk that there should be a formal debate to discuss this issue and restrict government surveillance online. As the increasing use of surveillance software, it threatens people’s right of privacy and each person in the world is entitled to their own privacy online as they do at home.
