The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine.
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a cabinet department of the U.S. federal government with responsibilities in public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terrorism, border security, immigration and customs, cyber security, and disaster prevention and management. It was created in response to the September 11 attacks and is the youngest U.S. cabinet department.
In espionage and counterintelligence, surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, activities, or other changing information for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting people. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment or interception of electronically transmitted information. It can also include simple no- or relatively low-technology methods such as human intelligence agent and postal interception. The word surveillance comes from a French phrase for "watching over" and is in contrast to more recent developments such as sousveillance.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is a department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) that uses behavioral analysts to assist in criminal investigations. The mission of the NCAVC and the BAU is to provide behavioral based investigative and/or operational support by applying case experience, research, and training to complex and time-sensitive crimes, typically involving acts or threats of violence.
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, more commonly known as Diplomatic Security, or DS, is the security and law enforcement arm of the United States Department of State. DS is a world leader in international investigations, threat analysis, cyber security, counterterrorism, security technology, and protection of people, property, and information. DS's mission is to provide a safe and secure environment for officials to carry out U.S. foreign policy.
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every incident and arrest in the Group A offense category. These Group A offenses are 49 offenses grouped in 23 crime categories. Specific facts about these offenses are gathered and reported in the NIBRS system. In addition to the Group A offenses, 10 Group B offenses are reported with only the arrest information.
Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) was a United States Department of Defense (DoD) agency whose size and budget were classified. The CIFA was created by a directive from the Secretary of Defense on February 19, 2002. On August 8, 2008, it was announced that CIFA would be shut down. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) absorbed most of the components and authorities of the CIFA into the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center which was later consolidated into the Defense Clandestine Service.
ADVISE is a research and development program within the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Threat and Vulnerability Testing and Assessment (TVTA) portfolio. It is reportedly developing a massive data mining system, which would collect and analyze data on everyone in the United States and perform a "threat analysis" on them. The data can be anything from financial records, phone records, emails, blog entries, website searches, to any other electronic information that can be put into a computer system. This information is then analyzed, and used to monitor social threats such as community-forming, terrorism, political organizing, or crime.
A government database collects information for various reasons, including climate monitoring, securities law compliance, geological surveys, patent applications and grants, surveillance, national security, border control, law enforcement, public health, voter registration, vehicle registration, social security, and statistics.
A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of secure or private/confidential information to an untrusted environment. Other terms for this phenomenon include unintentional information disclosure, data leak and also data spill. Incidents range from concerted attacks by black hats associated with organized crime, political activist or national governments to careless disposal of used computer equipment or data storage media and unhackable source.
The counter-terrorism page primarily deals with special police or military organizations that carry out arrest or direct combat with terrorists. This page deals with the other aspects of counter-terrorism:
Einstein was originally an intrusion detection system that monitors the network gateways of government departments and agencies in the United States for unauthorized traffic. The software was developed by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), which is the operational arm of the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The program was originally developed to provide "situational awareness" for the civilian agencies. While the first version examined network traffic and subsequent versions examined content, the current version of Einstein is significantly more advanced.
Police brutality is the abuse of authority by the unwarranted infliction of excessive force by personnel involved in law enforcement while performing their official duties. The term is also applied to abuses by corrections personnel in municipal, state and federal penal facilities including military prisons.
As a major developed economy, the United States is highly dependent on the Internet and therefore greatly exposed to cyber attacks. At the same time, the United States has substantial capabilities in both defense and power projection thanks to comparatively advanced technology and a large military budget. Cyber warfare presents a growing threat to physical systems and infrastructures that are linked to the internet. Malicious hacking from domestic or foreign enemies remains a constant threat to the United States. In response to these growing threats, the United States has developed significant cyber capabilities.
The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to World War I wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First World War and the Second World War, the surveillance continued, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists then deemed subversive. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.
The Intercept is an online news publication dedicated to what it describes as "adversarial journalism". It is supported financially by First Look Media, owned by Pierre Omidyar. Its editors are Betsy Reed, Glenn Greenwald, and Jeremy Scahill. Former editor Laura Poitras left the publication to work on non-fiction films. The Intercept also publishes two podcasts: Intercepted hosted by Scahill and Deconstructed hosted by Mehdi Hasan.
In the United States, use of deadly force by police has been a high-profile issue since the 1960s, when such incidents were often followed soon afterward by urban riots.
