Originality 2014

Infringing the Fourth Amendment

Mass surveillance by the United States government has been a predominant reoccurring
issue since classified government documents were leaked in May of 2013. These leaks lead to
one of the most significant debates about an individuals daily life in decades; the constituents
right to privacy. According to the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution, section
1, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. The purpose of this amendment is to
ensure the protection of the US people against unreasonable searches and seizures by the
government without a proper warrant. Top secret leaked government surveillance programs
contracted by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of J ustice have revealed
that the government has infected computers with malware, collected phone records, metadata,
data, and content from American citizens computers and phones. The United States Federal
government has gone too far in its surveillance techniques, and in doing so, have infringed upon
the rights of United States citizens in the process.
On J uly 5
th
, 2013, The Guardian, a British newspaper, announced the leak of National
Security Agency documents starting with the leak of the NSA collecting phone records of
Verizon, a US corporation, customers in the United States. The PRISM program was then
revealed the next day, regarding the server access to many of the top technology firms in the
world. Finally, on J une 9
th
, 2013, Edward Snowden revealed himself as the whistleblower to the
world. According to The Guardian, Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old former technical assistant
for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamiliton and has
worked for multiple corporations of contracts such as Booz Allen and Dell. He worked with
top secret clearance on multiple projects and later downloaded an estimated 1.7 million classified

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documents (Pincus). The United States government charged him with the theft of government
property and the violation of the US Espionage Act of 1917. Since J uly 2013 he has uncovered
programs such as PRISM, QUANTUM, SECONDDATE, and even more not including files yet
to be decrypted. Snowden is now labeled as a traitor by former Defense Secretary, Robert
Gates, but also as a hero for others such as Apples co-founder, Steve Wozniak. Snowden was
also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in J anuary 2014. The only thing that is known for
certain is that he has uncovered the largest citizen breach of privacy known.
Since computers became personalized, there have always been those who wish to invade
peoples personal space in order to acquire what is on their desktop, PDA, tablet, or other
devices. They are publicly known as hackers, but referred to as black hats or black hat hackers in
online and specialized communities. What many do not understand is that there are three types of
hackers; white hats, grey hats, and black hats. White hats are those you go to when you have a
computer issue and he or she fixes it for you. Grey hats help you, but they can also lean towards
the unethical side of computers. As earlier referred, black hats are those who use their knowledge
to forward their own agenda using methods of fraud, hacking, and other criminal and subversive
activities. These people use their specialties in ways to either invade peoples computers or help
against those who wish to invade peoples privacy. The major question that this paper asks is
which side is the United States government on?
The National Security Agency developed a system called QUANTUM in the 2000s used
many of the same methods that unethical hackers use to infiltrate peoples computers in order to
cause harm. The NSA uses Domain Name System injection, also known as DNS injection,
HTTP injections, and much more. QUANTUM is split into different sections including
QUANTUMDEFENSE, QUANTUMSMACKDOWN, and QUANTUMHAND (Schneier).

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These programs give access to a persons third-party database and enable them to hijack IRC and
HTTP-based botnets. These programs are allegedly used on criminals, but can be used to collect
information from anybody else in the United States as well. QUANTUMHAND is one of the
more malicious programs in which the NSA disguises a website as a fake Facebook server. As
someone tries to log onto the site, the NSA will then transmit harmful data packets that trick the
targets computer into believing they are on the real Facebook website. From there, they can
extract data from the computer.
Another exploitation method used by the National Security Agency uses a man-in-the-
middle attack, this program is codenamed SECONDDATE. SECONDDATE interferes with
communications between a client and server and will then redirect initiated browser page loads
in order to exploit the targets computer. This will cause a large security problem between all
clients on the network. Matt Blaze, a University of Pennsylvania surveillance expert, says the
potential use of man-in-the-middle attacks on such a scale seems very disturbing, and, the
thing that raises a red flag for me is the reference to network choke points. Thats the last place
that we should be allowing intelligence agencies to compromise the infrastructure because that
is by definition a mass surveillance technique. Blaze highlights the key idea around the
controversy of how the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on people within the
United States.
Dozens of programs were revealed since J uly of 2013, but the most significant and media
covered program was Prism. This eavesdropping program collects data from fiber-optic cable
networks that carry the worlds Internet and phone data. Companies such as Microsoft, Verizon,
and Google participated in this program to certain degrees. Prism allowed the government to spy
and receive live notifications when a target logs on or sends an e-mail, or may monitor a voice,

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text or voice chat as it happens (NSA Prism Slides). The program collects two types of data;
metadata and content. The difference between both is that Metadata is only the byproducts of
communication between parties, such as the time of the call and who is involved along with geo-
location data and browser cookies. The Constitutionality of Prism is covered by the FISA
Amendments Act (section 702) and the Patriot Act (section 215). The acts themselves are under
fire for being unconstitutional by many activist groups such as American Civil Liberties Union
and the Electronic Frontier Foundations and Color of Change as well (Khalek). Unfortunately,
the acts allow the National Security Agency to college data from major technological companies.
These laws are highly criticized, especially due to the point J ohn Oliver brought up on The Daily
Show on J une 10
th
, 2013, saying Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, were just
saying its a little bit weird you didnt have to (Mesamore). With laws already infringing the
fourth amendment, it is hard to protect against rights that have already been taken from you.
The reach of the National Security Agency has grown considerably in recent years. It
begs the question, how can you protect yourself against government snooping? One answer is to
start browsing anonymous on the web. This can be done by using the anonymous browser
capabilities of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsofts Internet Explorer, or other
browsers. Unfortunately, they are no true ways of being anonymous on the Internet. The most
popular answer to the problem is to use a browser called Tor. The browser connects users to the
normal web that you can access on any other browser, but also the deep web, home to many
highly illegal and criminal activities. Although it is used for those purposes, it is also a brilliant
way to stay anonymous from the government and independent hackers. Tor routes your traffic
through its own network and relays it through different stop points before arriving to the website
you chose. This prevents your ISP and other who are observing your Local Area Network from

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seeing the website you view and stops the website itself from collect the IP address that are
routed through the website when visited.
According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has developed a way to exploit the Tor
browser bundle, and goes on to say, The trick the NSA uses identifies Tor users on the Internet
and then executes an attack against their Firefox web browser (Schneier). The National Security
Agency then uses small fingerprints that detect HTTP requests from the known encrypted Tor
network and the NSA analyzes it in order to see what the person does on the Internet. This forces
those who rely on being anonymous to also acquire a Virtual Private Network to become
invisible on the Internet, which costs money. The United States government is slowly taking
away the constituents right to privacy through criminal hacking activities endorsed by the
government and the President himself.
Although there are many who are against the idea of the United States agencies invading
aspects of our daily life, there are some who endorse it. The main argument for the agreement
with the policy is that it allegedly keeps the country safe from attack. Representative of New
York, Peter King, said on the topic The President should stop apologizing, stop being defensive.
The reality is the NSA has saved thousands of lives not just in the United States but in France,
Germany and throughout Europe (Viswanatha). The surveillance programs instituted by the
National Security Agency have allegedly revolutionized the way the government can find and
dismantle terrorist operations. The main question posed regarding surveillance and terrorist is if
you should sacrifice your constitutionally given rights in order to potentially keep you safe. This
question can be related to a brilliant movie directed by J ames McTeigue, V for Vendetta. The
government sacrifices the peoples rights by creating a central media outputting propaganda,
fixed religion, curfews, and additional policies to ensure safety. This situation is much like

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Germany in World War II, where the rights of J ewish citizens were slowly taken away until they
could not do anything about it. The problem in the United States has been discovered early on in
the modern technological innovation era and can be fixed. Whether these surveillance techniques
save lives or not is not the issue, the issue is whether or not it infringes on the United States
Constitution that was instituted in order to preserve the rights of the people governed.
Every day you hear the left and the right talk about what is good for the citizens of the
United States. One thing that many representatives and senators on both sides agree on is that the
Federal governments surveillance programs need to be rebuilt. Ones rights cannot be
substituted for the sake of possible safety. Without the guaranteed constitutional liberties derived
from the Constitution, the United States is no better than those countries we oppose because of
their lack of fundamental rights. The forfeiture of liberty in this day in age is getting even more
alarming due to increase in technological innovation and because of this, the government needs
to set proper and fundamental guidelines in order to provide the assurance that they are safe
from the prying eyes of their government. Once the citizens start to lose their fundamental rights,
it is near impossible to get them back.









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Work-Cited
Gallagher, Ryan, and Glenn Greenwald. "How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers
with Malware - The Intercept."The Intercept. N.p., 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
<https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-millions-
computers-malware/>.
Khalek, Rania. "Activists of Color Lead Charge Against Surveillance, NSA."Truthout. N.p., n.d.
Web. 23 May 2014. <http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19695-activists-of-color-at-
forefront-of-anti-nsa-movement>.
Mesamore, W.E.. "The Humble Libertarian: J ohn Oliver: Mr. President, No One Is Saying You
Broke Any Laws, We're J ust Saying It's a Little Bit Weird You Didn't Have To
(Video)." The Humble Libertarian: John Oliver: Mr. President, No One Is Saying You
Broke Any Laws, We're Just Saying It's a Little Bit Weird You Didn't Have To (Video).
N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2014. <http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2013/06/john-oliver-
mr-president-no-one-is.html>.
Pincus, Walter. "Snowden still holding keys to the kingdom." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 23 May 2014.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/snowden-still-holding-keys-to-
the-kingdom/2013/12/18/b91d29a2-6761-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html>.
Schneier, Bruce . "Schneier on Security."Blog. N.p., 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html>.
Weaver, Nicholas. "A Close Look at the NSAs Most Powerful Internet Attack
Tool." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/03/q

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Viswanatha, Aruna, and Anna Yukhananov. "Two Republican congressmen defend U.S. spying
abroad." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 27 Oct. 2013. Web. 23 May 2014.
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/27/us-usa-security-
idUSBRE99Q07E20131027>.




















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Bibliography
Bibliography Gallagher, Ryan, and Glenn Greenwald. "How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions'
of Computers with Malware - The Intercept."The Intercept. N.p., 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 16
Mar. 2014. <https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-
millions-computers-malware/>.
"How the NSA's Domestic Spying Program Works." Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d.
Web. 23 May 2014. <https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works>.
"NSA Secrets." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 May 2014.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/nsa-secrets/>.
Khalek, Rania. "Activists of Color Lead Charge Against Surveillance, NSA."Truthout. N.p., n.d.
Web. 23 May 2014. <http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19695-activists-of-color-at-
forefront-of-anti-nsa-movement>.
Mesamore, W.E.. "The Humble Libertarian: J ohn Oliver: Mr. President, No One Is Saying You
Broke Any Laws, We're J ust Saying It's a Little Bit Weird You Didn't Have To
(Video)." The Humble Libertarian: John Oliver: Mr. President, No One Is Saying You
Broke Any Laws, We're Just Saying It's a Little Bit Weird You Didn't Have To (Video).
N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2014. <http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2013/06/john-oliver-
mr-president-no-one-is.html>.
Pincus, Walter. "Snowden still holding keys to the kingdom." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 23 May 2014.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/snowden-still-holding-keys-to-
the-kingdom/2013/12/18/b91d29a2-6761-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html>.

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Schneier, Bruce . "Schneier on Security."Blog. N.p., 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html>.
"Surveillance of Citizens by Government." - News. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2014. <
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/surveillance_of_citizens_b
y_government/index.html>.
Weaver, Nicholas. "A Close Look at the NSAs Most Powerful Internet Attack
Tool." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/03/q
Viswanatha, Aruna, and Anna Yukhananov. "Two Republican congressmen defend U.S. spying
abroad." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 27 Oct. 2013. Web. 23 May 2014.
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/27/us-usa-security-
idUSBRE99Q07E20131027>.



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