The Carnivore Invasion "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 The current use and regulations of the F.B.I. surveillance tool known as Carnivore need to be revised in such a way that it will no longer be able to copy the e-mails of unsuspecting Americans. Most Americans are not even aware of the existence of the Carnivore project. The ignorance of the American people is understandable; the government has gone to great lengths to ensure secrecy when it comes to the details of the Carnivore project. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light exactly how the Federal Burro of Investigation (FBI) has invaded the privacy of a countless number of Americans. Once the severe flaws of the Carnivore system have been outlined, this paper will describe what laws need to be changed to make the Carnivore project even reasonable. The FBI designed the Carnivore system to capture email communications of a criminal suspect. The information extracted from the suspect’s e-mails is then used as evidence against the suspect. In this simple explanation the Carnivore system appears to be an effective tool against crime. Unfortunately most issues in this world cannot be explained in two sentences. The process of implementing the Carnivore system begins with a court order for a full content-wiretap (Tyson 2). Once a court order has been issued the FBI is required to request that the suspects Internet Service Provider (ISP) is willing/able to copy all of the e-mails to and from the suspects address. The initial request made by the FBI to allow the ISP to copy the suspect’s e-mails is to ensure that the FBI has tried to meet the “best evidence” rule (Graham 8). The “best evidence” rule simply states that the FBI has to obtain evidence in the best way possible. If the ISP is able to copy the suspect’s e-mails directly, it is considered better evidence. If the ISP declines the FBI’s request then the FBI is allowed to install the Carnivore system onto the suspect’s ISP (Graham 6). Why would an ISP decline assistance? ISPs are concerned about the privacy of their customers. For example, Earthlink testified before the Carnivore Committee saying that what the FBI was asking them to do “.
Many families in America can’t decide what food chain to eat from. In the book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan lists four food chains: Industrial, Industrial Organic, Local Sustainable, and Hunter-Gatherer. The Industrial food chain is full of large farms that use chemicals and factories. Industrial Organic is close to it except it doesn’t use as many chemicals and the animals have more space. Local Sustainable is where food is grown without chemicals, the animals have freedom and they eat what they were born to eat. Lastly, Hunter-Gatherer is where you hunt and grow your own food. The omnivore's dilemma is trying to figure out what food chain to eat from. Local Sustainable is the best food chain to feed the United States because it is healthy and good for the environment.
“But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.”
Millions of animals are consumed everyday; humans are creating a mass animal holocaust, but is this animal holocaust changing the climate? In the essay “ The Carnivores Dilemma,” written by Nicolette Hahn Niman, a lawyer and livestock rancher, asserts that food production, most importantly beef production, is a global contributor to climate change. Nicolette Niman has reports by United Nations and the University of Chicago and the reports “condemn meat-eating,” and the reports also say that beef production is closely related to global warming. Niman highlights, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides are the leading greenhouses gases involved in increasing global warming. A vast majority of people across the world consumes meat and very little people are vegetarian, or the people that don’t eat meat, but are there connections between people and meat production industry when it comes to eating food and the effect it has on the climate? The greenhouse gases, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides are not only to blame, but we should be looking at people and industrialized farming for the leading cause of greenhouse gases in agriculture and the arm-twisting dilemma we have been lured into, which is meat production itself.
With freedom comes great responsibility. This saying has been heard by generations of kids and has been said by generations of parents. Unfortunately people today don?t seem to be responsible in certain things they do. You see things in media today that make you wonder when you draw the line on things you say and do. William Golding the author of Lord of The Flies conveys this thought in the story of the boys stuck on the island where they have complete freedom to do whatever they want to do. They no longer had adults to tell them what and how to do things. The story just proves that when people are irresponsible and freedom gets abused that very bad things can happen.
Our nation seems as if it is in a constant battle between freedom and safety. Freedom and security are two integral parts that keep our nation running smoothly, yet they are often seen conflicting with one another. “Tragedies such as Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings may invoke feelings of patriotism and a call for unity, but the nation also becomes divided, and vulnerable populations become targets,” (Wootton 1). “After each attack a different group or population would become targets. “The attack on Pearl Harbor notoriously lead to Japanese Americans being imprisoned in internment camps, the attacks on 9/11 sparked hate crimes against those who appeared to be Muslim or Middle Eastern,” (Wootton 1). Often times people wind up taking sides, whether it be for personal freedoms or for national security, and as a nation trying to recover from these disasters we should be leaning on each other for support. Due to these past events the government has launched a series of antiterrorist measures – from ethnic profiling to going through your personal e-mail (Begley 1). Although there are times when personal freedoms are sacrificed for the safety of others, under certain circumstances the government could be doing more harm than good.
“What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security didn’t depend upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter an enemy attack?”
equally chosen that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed” (Jefferson).
Author Citron stresses the importance of the law enforcement using those tools they have to track down individuals that are intentionally and maybe even non intentionally engaging in cyber
The United States government is up to its ears in the personal information it has collected from its citizens. Americans are becoming increasingly “aware of these slowly eroding walls of privacy,”(Hirsh) and more than half polled admit concern “about the overall accumulation of personal information about them “by […] law enforcement, government, […] and other groups,” though “they accept it as an unavoidable modern phenomenon” (Hirsh). The question is, how far is too far to trust the government with the collection, proper storage, and usage of this information? Studies show that “Americans believe that business, government, social-media sites, and other groups are accessing their most personal information without their consent” (Hirsh). People should be given the ability to admit or deny access to their personal information. The government does not have a right to use whatever information it wants for any purpose it wishes. Michael Hayden, once the NSA director for seven years, says, “Even I recognize that it's one thing for Google to know too much, because they aren't putting me in jail. It's another thing for government, because they can coerce me” (Hirsh). The United States government's ability to collect information about its citizens and residents should be restricted by what kind of information it can take, how it can acquire it, and what it can use it for.
The world erupted in outrage following revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the extent of surveillance perform by the National Security Agency. Privacy becomes one of the hottest topic of 2013 and was chosen by the world’s most popular online dictionary, Dictionary.com, as the Word of the Year. However, the government is not the only one that conduct data gathering and surveillance. Employers often monitor their employees, and businesses collect data on theirs customer. The morality of these practices is a topic that generates heated debate.
In 1891, a German zoologist named Karl Semper introduced the concept of a food chain, a process that is requisite for all living creatures. The chain consists of different levels. On the bottom are plants, then herbivores, the animals that eat plants. Next are carnivores, animals that eat other animal species, and the last are the animals that eat carnivores. The chain tends to overlap due to animals that eat more than one kind of food. Some people choose to be carnivores, while others choose to be herbivores due to the feeling that it is wrong to eat another living being. Humans are usually thought of as the superior animals on the Earth and living in modern society many nutritious foods are provided, especially meat. Some people choose to live herbivorous lifestyles due to moral and ethic reasoning, which can easily result in malnutrition as well as health risks that could have easily been avoided had they eaten carnivorously.
However, government agencies, especially in America, continue to lobby for increased surveillance capabilities, particularly as technologies change and move in the direction of social media. Communications surveillance has extended to Internet and digital communications. law enforcement agencies, like the NSA, have required internet providers and telecommunications companies to monitor users’ traffic. Many of these activities are performed under ambiguous legal basis and remain unknown to the general public, although the media’s recent preoccupation with these surveillance and privacy issues is a setting a trending agenda.
As can be seen, from the information presented, the need for laws and restrictions concerning internet data collection is greatly needed. Moreover, the government can search private citizens data without warrant or cause. Also, companies are not only collecting internet user data but also selling it. The companies and agencies who commit such crimes should be fined or either closed down. In closing, the privacy and security of individuals on the internet should be upheld by the United States government.
The article “What makes cybercrime laws so difficult to enforce” discusses the various difficulties encountered by authority powers attempting to track down criminals that use the internet to carry out immoral actions. Shinder (2011) highlights the naivety of legislators and their inability to foresee what the increased availability of internet access would mean for policing agencies. Unfamiliar and therefore unopposed forms of crime were developed much more rapidly than could be anticipated and handled. The need for and effective system of cybercrime policing swiftly became apparent. Unfortunately, as Shinder (2011) points out, identifying the need for an effective form of cyber policing is only a small step in a series of considerable leaps necessary for the actual establishment of such a system. Jurisdictional issues as well as the problem of pinpointing the name and location of offenders can get in the way of such a system (Shinder, 2011). Even if policing forces get passed these obstacles there is still of controversy resulting from the unique quality of digital evidence (Shinder, 2011).
In terms of government intelligence, in the information age greatest threats to privacy have been the result of technology and business practices related to e-commerce, marketing and information databases, and not the result of government intrusions (Hoffman, Novak & Peralta, 1997). Nevertheless “all things considered, the increasing and overlapping information sharing by governments and businesses about formerly confidential or private activities generates concerns about potential violations of individual’s privacy rights” (Mace, 2008 cited in Gal, Kantor & Lesk, 2008, p.41).