Surveillance abuse

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Surveillance abuse is the use of surveillance methods or technology to monitor the activity of an individual or group of individuals in a way which violates the social norms or laws of a society.

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During the FBI's COINTELPRO operations, there was widespread surveillance abuse which targeted political dissidents, primarily people from the political left and civil rights movement.

Other abuses include "LOVEINT" which refers to the practice of secret service employees using their extensive monitoring capabilities to spy on their love interest or spouse. [1]

There is no prevention in the amount of unauthorized data collected on individuals and this leads to cases where cameras are installed inappropriately. [2] “For instance, according to the BBC, four council workers in Liverpool used a street CCTV pan-tilt-zoom camera to spy on a woman in her apartment.” (Cavallaro, 2007). This is just one case where culprits have been caught; however, there are still many common acts such as this. Another incident of inappropriate installation now has “Pennsylvania parents suing their son's school, alleging it watched him through his laptop's webcam while he was at home and unaware he was being observed.” (Surveillance Camera Players, 2010). This leads to the misconception of surveillance, as it once was a tool to monitor and make sure citizens abide by the law, it has now created even more problems. With cameras only becoming more advanced and more common, it is difficult to determine whether these surveillance cameras are helping to ensure a safe society or leading to bigger issues altogether. [3]

With the growing of Web 2.0 and social networking sites, surveillance may be more easily and commonly abused in many situations for a variety of reasons. For example, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), formerly known as Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), has previously spied on Canadians through the public wireless internet connections in an airport in the country. Through this they gathered information on who people called or texted and where they were when they communicated with others. The CSE search through approximately 10-15 million downloads daily. An example of where surveillance may have been abused is where Facebook and Apple have admitted to allowing government officials to access personal information of their account users. [4] [5] [6] [7]

A device which may be used to abuse surveillance, called a Stingray, acts and looks similar to a cellphone tower but it tricks mobile devices into connecting with it. After connected an operator can take information stored on the device, sometimes intercepting phone calls and text messages. This method of surveillance can be used on random civilians or in an investigation of a particular person. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COINTELPRO</span> Series of covert and illegal projects by the FBI

COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights and Black power movements, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements, a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance</span> Monitoring something for the purposes of influencing, protecting, or suppressing it

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communications Security Establishment</span> Canadas national cryptologic agency

The Communications Security Establishment, formerly called the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), is the Government of Canada's national cryptologic agency. It is responsible for foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT) and communications security (COMSEC), protecting federal government electronic information and communication networks, and is the technical authority for cyber security and information assurance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance</span> Intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, such as organizations like the NSA, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is also often distinguished from targeted surveillance.

An agent provocateur is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicates them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the target, or a group they belong to or are perceived to belong to. They may target any group, such as a peaceful protest or demonstration, a union, a political party or a company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sousveillance</span> Recording of an activity by a participant

Sousveillance is the recording of an activity by a member of the public, rather than a person or organisation in authority, typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies. The term, coined by Steve Mann, stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the means of observation down to human level, either physically or hierarchically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Higgitt</span> Canadian civil servant

William Leonard Higgitt was the 14th commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), holding office from 1969 to 1973, and President of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) from 1972 to 1976. Leonard Higgitt's background in intelligence and counterintelligence with the RCMP during and after World War II made him the preferred choice as RCMP Commissioner at what was the height of the Cold War. Higgitt also directed national security operations during the October Crisis of 1970, when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross, events which saw then Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoke the War Measures Act, the first time in Canadian history that the Act was invoked during peacetime. As Commissioner, Higgitt also presided over the RCMP centenary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project MINARET</span>

Project MINARET was a domestic espionage project operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), which, after intercepting electronic communications that contained the names of predesignated US citizens, passed them to other government law enforcement and intelligence organizations. Intercepted messages were disseminated to the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and the Department of Defense. The project was a sister project to Project SHAMROCK.

Jack Hooper is the former deputy director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) who became well known mainly for his role in some of Canada's most sensitive and controversial spy-service scandals, including CSIS's involvement in the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer father of two who was sent to Syria where he was imprisoned without charges and tortured.

High policing is a form of intelligence-led policing that serves to protect the national government or a conglomerate of national governments from internal threats; that is, any policing operations integrated into domestic intelligence gathering, national security, or international security operations for the purpose of protecting government.

Cyber spying, cyber espionage, or cyber-collection is the act or practice of obtaining secrets and information without the permission and knowledge of the holder of the information using methods on the Internet, networks or individual computers through the use of proxy servers, cracking techniques and malicious software including Trojan horses and spyware. Cyber espionage can be used to target various actors- individuals, competitors, rivals, groups, governments, and others- in order to obtain personal, economic, political or military advantages. It may wholly be perpetrated online from computer desks of professionals on bases in far away countries or may involve infiltration at home by computer trained conventional spies and moles or in other cases may be the criminal handiwork of amateur malicious hackers and software programmers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stingray phone tracker</span> Cellular phone surveillance device

The StingRay is an IMSI-catcher, a cellular phone surveillance device, manufactured by Harris Corporation. Initially developed for the military and intelligence community, the StingRay and similar Harris devices are in widespread use by local and state law enforcement agencies across Canada, the United States, and in the United Kingdom. Stingray has also become a generic name to describe these kinds of devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance in the United States</span>

The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, 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, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global surveillance</span> Mass surveillance across national borders

Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cellphone surveillance</span> Interception of mobile phone activity

Cellphone surveillance may involve tracking, bugging, monitoring, eavesdropping, and recording conversations and text messages on mobile phones. It also encompasses the monitoring of people's movements, which can be tracked using mobile phone signals when phones are turned on.

A dirtbox is a cell site simulator, a phone device mimicking a cell phone tower, that creates a signal strong enough to cause nearby dormant mobile phones to switch to it. Mounted on aircraft, it is used by the United States Marshals Service to locate and collect information from cell phones believed to be connected with criminal activity. It can also be used to jam phones. The device's name comes from the company that developed it, Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. (DRT), owned by the Boeing company. Boeing describes the device as a hybrid of "jamming, managed access and detection". A similar device with a smaller range, the controversial StingRay phone tracker, has been widely used by U.S. federal entities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Police surveillance in New York City</span>

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) actively monitors public activity in New York City, New York, United States. Historically, surveillance has been used by the NYPD for a range of purposes, including against crime, counter-terrorism, and also for nefarious or controversial subjects such as monitoring political demonstrations, activities, and protests, and even entire ethnic and religious groups.

Kunstler v. Central Intelligence Agency is a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Undercover Global S.L., and David Morales Guillen filed by a group of American lawyers and journalists associated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The lawsuit alleges that the CIA violated their constitutional rights by recording their conversations with Assange and copying their phones and computers after suspicions were raised that Assange was working for the Russian intelligence services.

References

  1. ↑ "NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests".
  2. ↑ Coplan, Paul M.; Budman, Simon H.; Landau, Craig; Black, Ryan A.; Chilcoat, Howard; Cassidy, Theresa A.; Butler, Stephen F. (2013-04-01). "Abuse Rates and Routes of Administration of Reformulated Extended-Release Oxycodone: Initial Findings From a Sentinel Surveillance Sample of Individuals Assessed for Substance Abuse Treatment". The Journal of Pain. 14 (4): 351–358. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2012.08.008 . ISSN   1526-5900. PMID   23127293.
  3. ↑ Jansen, Anja M.; Giebels, Ellen; van Rompay, Thomas J. L.; Junger, Marianne (2018-10-16). "The Influence of the Presentation of Camera Surveillance on Cheating and Pro-Social Behavior". Frontiers in Psychology. 9: 1937. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01937 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   6198084 . PMID   30386277.
  4. ↑ Alexander, Julia. "How the Canadian Government Can Spy on Your Online Activities".
  5. ↑ Brown, Jesse (2014). "Where Is Canada's Rage over Digital Surveillance?".
  6. ↑ Hildebrant, Ambera; Dave Seglins and Michael Pereira (2015). "CSE Monitors Millions of Canadian Emails to Government".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ Lievrouw, Leah A. (2011). "Alternative and Activist New Media". Cambridge, UK: Polity.
  8. ↑ Braga, Matthew. "The Covert Cellphone Tracking Tech the RCMP and CSIS Won't Talk about." The Globe and Mail. N.p., 15 Sept. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
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