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Running head: SURVEILLANCE 1

Surveillance

Author’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

SURVEILLANCE 2

Abstract

Surveillance is defined as the observation or monitoring of an individual to fulfil any

objective. The term encompasses not only visual examinations but also the scrutiny of a

person's behaviour, speech, and actions. Typical examples of monitoring include closed

circuit cameras (CCTV), wiretaps, GPS tracking, infiltrates, computer, and phones and

internet surveillance. One-way observation can be in a way an expression of control. Just as

having, an unknown person stare at you for long without one's consent can be uncomfortable

and hostile; it depicts the situation of being under constant surveillance. The only difference

is that surveillance is often done surreptitiously and under the supervision of some authority.

This paper seek to analyse the extent and forms of surveillance on people. Everyday life

experience and data obtained from authoritative sources will be used to discuss the issue of

surveillance and possible ways the society can handle the problem of involuntary enquiries

into their lives. Camera (CCTVs) and social network will be analysed in depth to demonstrate

the concept of surveillance.

Keywords: Surveillance, Camera, Social Networks

SURVEILLANCE 3

Surveillance

Introduction

Today’s technological advancement takes surveillance to new ranks; no longer are

spyglasses and eavesdropping necessary to observe individuals' activities. The government

can and does utilize trendy methods to observe all its citizens without the need for physical

presence of a spy. Clearly, this modernization of technology has a profound impact on the

ethics of placing an individual under survey involuntarily. In the modern society, where so

many peoples actions are observable, recordable, searchable, and accurately traceable, close

surveillance is much more aggressive than it has been in the past (American Civil Liberties

Union, 2014). Computer surveillance methods involves the data-monitoring of traffic created

by users on the Internet.

Surveillance in use

In countries like the U.S.A. the Communications Assistance for Federal Law

Enforcement Act allows all phone and broadband connections to be closely monitored by the

law enforcement agencies (Staff, 2014). There is sufficient data online for investigators to

check and discover personal details concerning individuals of interest. The automated

Internet surveillance, computers go through the intercepted data traffic, identify and report to

certain "trigger" words and phrases. Email or chats that contain suspicious individuals or

group relation are also intercepted for investigation.

Social sites are open surveillance targets owing to the personal data that they provide.

There is a risk of people's details falling into the wrong hands if someone installs a software,

such as NASA CIPAV and the FBI's main surveillance tool, the Magic Lantern, on a

computer system. Such software are physically installable or from remote sources. Another

surveillance tactic, Eck phreaking, which reads electromagnetic emanations from computing

SURVEILLANCE 4

tools to mine data at distances in meters away. The NSA runs a software known as "Pinwale",

which can store and index junks of both Americans and foreigners emails. (Revi, 2014).

The official and unofficial interception of telephone communication involving peers

on social networks is widespread across the world. United States, the law permits Federal law

and intelligence organizations to wiretap phone messages and VoIP communications.

Telecommunications companies in the have agreements with the FBI that requires them to all

keep their messaging logs at a price of $1.8 per year. The FBI ordered all social site operators

to reveal information concerning their clients, half of which were American citizens. Today,

human intervention to survey in most transmissions made online is no longer required.

Speech-to-text conversion software builds readable text out of the intercepted audio messages

and then passed through automated message-analysis programs. This software picks

keywords and determines whether to dedicate the information to human analysers.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have developed technologies that can

remotely activate microphones in cell phones, giving them the ability to capture

conversations taking place near the cell phone’s owner. GPS enabled devices are also handy

in collecting position data. The geographical location system can give the location of the

owner if activated remotely. Multiretation technique can be used to determine the position of

a device owner, even without the use of a GPS; it calculates the time a signal takes to move

from the device to multiple cell towers around the owner. The legality of such systems

questionable, particular whether it should be on a court warrant.

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Surveillance Chart

Cameras

Surveillance cameras are installed by millions of people are nowadays controlled by

automated computer software instead of humans. They are video recording devices used for

observing a locality. They are often linked via IP network, and relay information to security

guards and responsible agencies. Cameras and recording equipment were expensive and

required checking human beings, but analysis of the record has been simplified by the use of

automated software that organizes the images into a searchable information. With reduced

Physical

Biological identity

such as fingerprint

Bugged devices

Postal services

Identification Cards

Human operative

Identity

Movements

Contacts

Activities

Social relationships

Surveillance

Biological

Biometric

Electronic

Computer

Phone

Global Positioning System

RFID Tagging

Satellite Imagery

Aerial

Social Webs

Camera

Telephones

Information Collected

Identity

Movements

Contacts

Activities

Social relationships

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production costs, surveillance CCTVs are simple and less expensive to serve in private

buildings, and for everyday monitoring.

Recently in a program called Operation Virtual Shield, the Chicago recently spent a

$5.1 million of Homeland Security funding to purchase more surveillance cameras, and link

them to a centralized command. Chicago Mayor, Daley revealed that Chicago would have

CCTVs installed on every street. Similarly, China's Golden Shield Initiative involved several

international corporations, including IBM and General Electric installing sufficient CCTVs

throughout China. The project had video analytics and identification capabilities, which can

track individuals across the country. They connect to a monitoring station, which contain a

picture of every person's face in China.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is involved in the development of a

surveillance mission dabbed Combat Zones That See. It consists of the link up cameras

across cities; they can identify people and vehicles as well as track their movement through

the area and alert security of any suspicious occurrence. The development of coordinated

networks of CCTVs in public areas – linked to hard drives containing people's identity. The

police can then be able to watch people's actions throughout the areas. The practice has been

viewed to be a source of risk to civil liberties.

As much as the use of CCTV cameras for surveillance is recommendable in

combating crime, the main worry is to what extent people can continue to live private lives if

every step that they make is recorded for investigation. It is difficult to set the cameras to

capture only criminal activities, both innocent and criminal people do fall victim of the

cameras, and there is no way people can avoid such surveillance (Surveilance, 2014).

However, the best the society can do is propose policies that limit the use of CCTV cameras

in public places, and restrict in private properties unless with a warrant.

Social Networks

SURVEILLANCE 7

Social network analysis allows governments to obtain information about peoples'

family members, friends, and other contacts. Since the users voluntarily make much of this

data public, it is often treated as a way of open-source intelligence. The most common form

of surveillance is building maps of social networks using data mined from social networks

including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. These social network "maps" give important

information such as personal hobbies, friendships & affiliations, needs, beliefs, thoughts, and

activities. The information given over social sites may be critical to the privacy of

individuals, as a result, to the extent that one must provide such information to use a site; it

ceases to be voluntary in some way. The society needs to come up with policies that dictate

how much data one must provide in a social site in order to use the resource.

Economic transactions in modern society leave behind prominent amounts of stored

records and data. This type of data was documented in the paper or was just not documented

at all. Paper-based records were a laborious process and required human interventions to dig

manually through documents, which was erratic. However, today many of this information

are electronic, yielding to an "electronic trail". This is evident in activities such as use of a

banking device, payment by credit card, checking out rented video and a library book, which

create new complete electronic records. Records, especially public records such as birth, tax

compliance, court records and other records are being digitized and made available for

follow-ups.

Electronic record keeping makes information easily storable, collectable, and

accessible such that efficient aggregation, high-volume and analysis becomes possible at

importantly lower costs. When large number of this kind of transactions are combined, they

build a elaborated profile showing the locations frequented visited, social connections and

habits of the preferences of the individual. Personal information accessed by these methods

are difficult to erase, in addition, the information can be used by the government as well as

SURVEILLANCE 8

unauthorized sources. Implanting regulation on the use of such data can go a long way in

reducing surveillance, especially in situations that such information cannot be avoided.

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References

American Civil Liberties Union. (2014, October 18). Spy Files. Retrieved from ACLU:

https://www.aclu.org//spy-files

Revi, T. N. (2014, October 18). NSA Surveillance: What government can't see. Retrieved

from www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jul/15/nsa-surveillance-what-

governmet-cant-see/

Staff, T. (2014, October 18). A Glossaru of Government Surveilance. Retrieved from

nation.time.com/2013/08/01/a-glossary-of/-governemnt-surveillance

Surveilance, T. E. (2014, October 18). The ethics (or not) of massive governemnt surveilance.

Retrieved from cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/ethics-of-

surveilance/ethics.html

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