Articles about the NSA
“New Snowden Leak Reveals the NSA Planted Agents inside ‘World of Warcraft’,” Paul Tassi, Forbes
“New Snowden Leak Reveals the NSA Planted Agents inside ‘World of Warcraft’,” Paul Tassi, Forbes
The NSA planted agents inside online video games for surveillance in their fight against terrorism. Follows the trend of the NSA doing ridiculous surveillance with no tangible results. Tassi argues that the NSA overextends its resources on ridiculous and ultimately fruitless endeavors.
“Keep Spying on Foreigners, NSA,” Eric Posner, Slate
This article argues in favor of NSA surveillance of other countries, this article argues that the NSA should continue spying on other countries because we have no reason not to. He says that the U.S. has an edge in surveillance and we should try to keep it.
On the first article: When I first saw the title for this article I will admit that I thought I was reading The Onion. The NSA is spying on a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. I was unaware that demographic was a primary threat to national security. But a few Google searches proved me wrong: many articles across the internet mention this. According to the NSA “Terrorists use online games – but perhaps not for their amusement,” it says. “They are suspected of using them to communicate secretly and to transfer funds.” Oh. Another good reason to keep your kids off the computer, eh? This whole thing seems kind of ridiculous to me. The amount of time and manpower it would require to infiltrate these games, find the terrorists, and stop them seems excessive. The article mentions that the NSA has tried to recruit other players, but lets be honest, a 13 year old boy would not react well if he was asked to assist the NSA in spying on terrorists on his favorite video game. Either he would say "**** off, ******!" or he would think he's a secret agent or something. In any case, this does not seem like a good way to spend taxpayer money. While the released document says “Al-Qaida terrorist target selectors and … have been found associated with Xbox Live, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other GVEs [Games and Virtual Environments],” the document says. “Other targets include Chinese hackers, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Hizballah, and Hamas members.” I'm not so sure that their activities online are a major threat to our national security.
On the first article: When I first saw the title for this article I will admit that I thought I was reading The Onion. The NSA is spying on a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. I was unaware that demographic was a primary threat to national security. But a few Google searches proved me wrong: many articles across the internet mention this. According to the NSA “Terrorists use online games – but perhaps not for their amusement,” it says. “They are suspected of using them to communicate secretly and to transfer funds.” Oh. Another good reason to keep your kids off the computer, eh? This whole thing seems kind of ridiculous to me. The amount of time and manpower it would require to infiltrate these games, find the terrorists, and stop them seems excessive. The article mentions that the NSA has tried to recruit other players, but lets be honest, a 13 year old boy would not react well if he was asked to assist the NSA in spying on terrorists on his favorite video game. Either he would say "**** off, ******!" or he would think he's a secret agent or something. In any case, this does not seem like a good way to spend taxpayer money. While the released document says “Al-Qaida terrorist target selectors and … have been found associated with Xbox Live, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other GVEs [Games and Virtual Environments],” the document says. “Other targets include Chinese hackers, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Hizballah, and Hamas members.” I'm not so sure that their activities online are a major threat to our national security.
