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=Government Surveillance on the Internet=

The Internet poses as a form of surveillance for governments to monitor individuals among societies to ensure safety and security. The term surveillance refers to efforts that are made by governments to gather information regarding individuals from a distance. Surveillance can be performed covertly as well as without entering the personal space of individuals. In most places around the world, democratic or not, communication infrastructures are for the most part government owned and operated. Content surveillance can be found in these parts of the world as well as the monitoring of Internet based traffic. This can be performed by one or more government intelligence or law enforcement agencies. It usually occurs without any notice of entry and without the requirement for anticipated cause and reasonable belief to be reviewing the substance of the communication. In undemocratic societies, all citizens are being watched all the time. This is because all dissent is a threat to the system of government in power. By having control over everyone in a society, the governments can ensure that they will be staying in power and also maintaining power. In the past, surveillance was executed by using networks of spies and informants. In modern day society, surveillance is now completed by total Internet supervision. The capabilities that technology provides to societies today has taken surveillance to a whole new level. Governments now have the ability and the materials available that enable them to observe the behaviour of all individuals without the need for a physical spy to be present. Advanced technology provides acute impact in regard to ethics and surveillance. All actions performed by individuals are observable, recordable, searchable, and traceable in modern day society. This can lead to many intrusive measures and methods of surveillance. Internet surveillance performed by government's works to create a sense of willfulness among individuals who are most opposed to systems of government. This is performed by creating a sense of anxiety about whether changing online political occurrences will make individuals the focus of inspection. Citizens are more frequent in terms of usage of the Internet and technology because it is rapidly evolving. The advancement of technology creates the issue and the possibility for security threats and dangers of strategic surprises. This issue has prompted governments to create a variety of online security monitoring strategies and tools. Among these tools and strategies are plans for movements and transactions, impeding communications, and examining and comprehending data. The vast network of computers has expanded worldwide which is providing computer infrastructure. This infrastructure makes the mass activity of widespread surveillance feasible. Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher, created the idea of the Panopticon. This consisted of a central observation tower in the center of a circular prison. The observation tower blinded prisoners from seeing the guards, therefore leaving them unaware of surveillance. Government surveillance has conformed to some aspects of Bentham's panopticon because of the availability and use of the Internet in surveillance. A critical component of powerful regulation of the Internet requires that the few watch the many and prevent the many from watching the few, similar to Benthams theory. The distinct instruments of the power that is provided by surveillance can best be demonstrated through the organization of the panopticon.

Government Surveillance Techniques
1. FBI Aerial Surveillance: This includes FBI airplanes equipped with high tech cameras and state of the art surveillance technology that are capable of tracking thousands of cellphones below. The planes fly large circles daily around large cities to track targets and gather information.

2.Domestic Interception Stations: intercepting stations have been installed by NSA technicians at key junction points, or switches throughout the country. The switches are located in large window-less buildings that are owned by major telecommunication companies. They control the domestic Internet traffic flow across the nation.

3. The PRISM Program: Partners at the FBI and DITU gather information from the servers of nine major American Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple inc. This partnership provides direct access to audio, video, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs for each of the systems.

4.Cellphone Tracking: The cellphone location tracking program gathers 5 billion records a day which feeds into a large 27 terabyte database where information is stored about the locations of thousands of devices.

5. Undersea Cable Tapping Program: Tapping into the worldwide network of undersea cables can process data as it flows through the Internet. The systems used are responsible for different types of intercepted data.

Transaction Surveillance
Transaction surveillance is a way of entry to recorded information about communications, proceedings, and transactions. Technology has enabled transaction surveillance to be a particularly powerful tool for law enforcement. Computers and the Internet are used by Commercial Data Brokers (CDB), to find unrefined information from public records. Detailed electronic footprints are generated by the transactions that are regulated and conducted in Cyberspace. These footprints have the ability to expose the preferences, characteristics, interests, and behaviours of individuals. The Internet provides revolutionary methods to unobtrusively observe the interactions about individuals. This information provides a copious amount of content for governments about an individual and their transactions. Computer databases allow for transaction surveillance to take place by allowing access to already existing records. These records may include phone logs, electronic mail logs, credit card histories, other financial transactional data, and air, train, and bus travel booking.

Physical Surveillance
Physical surveillance refers to the real-time observation or detection of movements, activities, and conditions. Before the revolution of technology, the examination of physical activities was dependable on the naked eye with devices as simple as telescopes and binoculars. As technology advances, physical surveillance can be performed with advanced technological tools included but not limited to, night scopes, thermal images, sophisticated telescopic and magnification devices, tracking tools, and see through detection technology.

Communication Surveillance
Communication surveillance includes the real time interception of oral, written, and electronic communication by using electronic or other surveillance means. Communication surveillance allows governments to monitor, intercept, collect, and preserve information that has been communicated, relayed, or generated over communication networks to a group of recipients. It does not require that a human reads or intercepts communication. It can take place on a mass scale, such as UKs Tempora system, or on more intrusive scales such as installing Malware on computers. Communication plays a major role in the lives of individuals therefore, it is important as it enables individuals to build relationships, share experiences, and develop individuals throughout society. Because of this, communication surveillance is significant for the fundamental need for communication in society.