During June of this year, Edward Snowden surprised the world by 'blowing the whistle' on obtrusive spying programs run by the United State's National Security Agency and the British Government Communications Headquarters. In this video, Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency analyst, leaked the details an scope of the NSA's PRISM spying program to the world.
Snowden stated that the NSA collects all the data it can, whether or not the suspect is in contact with a suspected terrorist. The NSA collects data even on innocent American citizens because it is easiest for the system to collect as much data as possible and discard irrelevant data later. An NSA analyst can probe any individual they want and go through the collected data. The data includes: phone calls, emails, social media posts, Skype calls, and instant messages.
This is a major breach in the American citizen's privacy. As Snowden says, "The U.S. government grants themselves powers unilaterally to create greater control over American society and global society." It is troubling to think that if you ever became a suspected target accidentally that the NSA would have the power to "scrutinize every decision you've ever made." You may think to yourself that the chances of you becoming a target of interest is so small that you don't have to worry. Yet the NSA is allowed to seek out individuals up to three degrees of seperation from the target. If you have the Facebook average of 190 friends and your Facebook friends, and friends of friends also have that number of friends then you can reach over 5 million people. With a few dozen mutually exclusive suspected targets, the entire U.S. population is a suspect.
After the release of this press conference, Snowden went on to say "the worst news has yet to come." Edward Snowden still plans to release more documents to the world to highlight the extent of the NSA's spying programs.
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