At the beginning of Edward Snowden's training for the CIA, Corbin O' Brian instructs the new employees to create a covert communications network in their home city, deploy it, back it up, destroy it, and restore it. "A covert communications network (CCN) is a connected, overlay peer-to-peer network used to support communications within a group in which the survival of the group depends on the confidentiality and anonymity of communications, on concealment of participation in the network to both other members of the group and external eavesdroppers, and finally on resilience against disconnection."[1] O'Brian also mentioned during a training session that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court(FISA) requires permission to get warrants, however, with cases where they cannot let the suspected know they are in question, they must remain confidential and cannot notify them of the warrant for surveillance. Gabriel Salt, employee of the National Security Agency, showed Snowden XKEYSCORE, which is essentially a search engine with data from public and private sources including but not limited to private instant messaging, public social media profiles, and all interactions. They are even able to see live video through webcams through camera and microphone activation of on and off computers(Optic Nerve). They have access to all networks for their own use without the general people's knowledge.
"The NSA programs are, first and foremost, intended to harvest data from (submarine) Internet cables (Upstream, Quantuminsert) and/or to intercept data during their travel (Tempora). They involve the placement of interceptors on the large fiber-optic cables connecting the different hubs of the Internet"[2]. The CIA has over 1,000 hacking programs, including attacks on mobile devices through two of the most popular smartphone operating systems, iOS and Android[3]. These attacks create access to text messages, location, audio, and can active a phone's camera and microphone. The CIA hacking programs also include attacks on Windows, Linux, and other internet-connected computers[3]. Also, in the movie, Snowden says that the U.S government planted malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria, and other countries that they were not actually suspicious of. Therefore, acting in favor of just themselves unwarranted.
Looking at this case from a Kantian point of view, the NSA/CIA used the general public as a means to an end, by invading their privacy without their knowledge, and accessing their personal information and actions for their records and investigations. Kantianism also focuses on what a person ought to do, dutifulness, in which case, invading people's privacy to obtain their actions and personal information through their network access would be morally wrong.
References
[1] Timothy Glen Nix. 2013. Covert Communication Networks. Ph.D. Dissertation. Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, USA. Advisor(s) Riccardo Bettati. AAI3607804.
[2]Zygmunt Bauman, Didier Bigo, Paulo Esteves, Elspeth Guild, Vivienne Jabri, David Lyon, R. B. J. Walker; After Snowden: Rethinking the Impact of Surveillance, International Political Sociology, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 June 2014, Pages 121–144, https://doi.org/10.1111/ips.12048
[3]Benner, Steve Lohr And Katie. “With WikiLeaks Claims of C.I.A. Hacking, How Vulnerable Is Your Smartphone?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/technology/cia-hacking-documents-wikileaks-iphones-tvs.html?mcubz=1. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
[4] Image- http://www.techdefencelabs.com/public/img/services/network-penetration.jpg
"The NSA programs are, first and foremost, intended to harvest data from (submarine) Internet cables (Upstream, Quantuminsert) and/or to intercept data during their travel (Tempora). They involve the placement of interceptors on the large fiber-optic cables connecting the different hubs of the Internet"[2]. The CIA has over 1,000 hacking programs, including attacks on mobile devices through two of the most popular smartphone operating systems, iOS and Android[3]. These attacks create access to text messages, location, audio, and can active a phone's camera and microphone. The CIA hacking programs also include attacks on Windows, Linux, and other internet-connected computers[3]. Also, in the movie, Snowden says that the U.S government planted malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria, and other countries that they were not actually suspicious of. Therefore, acting in favor of just themselves unwarranted.
Looking at this case from a Kantian point of view, the NSA/CIA used the general public as a means to an end, by invading their privacy without their knowledge, and accessing their personal information and actions for their records and investigations. Kantianism also focuses on what a person ought to do, dutifulness, in which case, invading people's privacy to obtain their actions and personal information through their network access would be morally wrong.
References
[1] Timothy Glen Nix. 2013. Covert Communication Networks. Ph.D. Dissertation. Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, USA. Advisor(s) Riccardo Bettati. AAI3607804.
[2]Zygmunt Bauman, Didier Bigo, Paulo Esteves, Elspeth Guild, Vivienne Jabri, David Lyon, R. B. J. Walker; After Snowden: Rethinking the Impact of Surveillance, International Political Sociology, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 June 2014, Pages 121–144, https://doi.org/10.1111/ips.12048
[3]Benner, Steve Lohr And Katie. “With WikiLeaks Claims of C.I.A. Hacking, How Vulnerable Is Your Smartphone?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/technology/cia-hacking-documents-wikileaks-iphones-tvs.html?mcubz=1. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
[4] Image- http://www.techdefencelabs.com/public/img/services/network-penetration.jpg