It seems that those who were astonished, abhorred, enraged or outraged from finding out that the National Security Agency (NSA) tracked millions of united states citizens and did so with the cooperation of numerous internet service providers, telecommunication companies and web-based hosting services had not even bothered to read the news in the last decade and to see reports on unauthorized searches in computers and about the way that the law authorities act. We, as Israelies, can only be jealous of the public outrage from such authoritarian conduct, because, well, in Israel, the situation is quite worse. The Israeli authorities took George Orwell’s book, Ninteen Eighty Four, and made it in to a master plan.
![](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5070/5587888155_cf8a915493.jpg)
CC-BY-NC-ND Gerard Van der Leun
To us, as Israelies, the NSA’s authorities sound like a poor joke. Because, the NSA can only pray to get the legal and popular acceptance that the Israeli Police and other investigative authorities obtained. During the last decade, Israel enacted many surveillance laws that allowed unprecedented use of personal information for investigatory uses, and not just for the prevention of terror.
In 2007, the Israeli parliament enacted the Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Authorities – Metadata) Act. The act itself granted the police, as well as other investigative agencies, abhorrent authority to obtain widespread information about nationals, and even without judicial review. The authorities could approach the telecommunication providers (ISPs, mobile operators and phone operators), pay a few Shekels, and obtain answers to queries, as long as such queries relate to specific crimes or investigations. For example, if a murder occurred in a specific street, the police could have approached the cellular providers and request the subscribers who were in the street at a specific time.
In a similar manner, the police could approach an Internet service provider and request a list of subscribers who browsed a certain page, or inquire who was the subscriber who leaked anonymous information to a military correspondent about inadherence to the supreme court’s ruling in the military’s conduct.
The act’s application was so successful that the police requested more information about subscribers, even though it was not authorized to do so; the police, for example, requested to find out who is the sales representative who sold the mobile devices and what payment means were used to pay the bills. The act, which made the courts into a rubber stamp (because no metadata request was denied, apparently) allowed the police to request 9,000 requests in 2009; out of which, almost 2,000 were related to political activities such as public disturbances.
That’s why the Israeli Civil Rights Association appealed against the act (HCJ 3809/08 ACRI v. The Police), but the appeal was rejected. Following the rejection of the appeal, the state decided it wants more authority for more authorities, so that even authorities like the Parks and Forests Authority will be entitled for your GPS location, and that more information will be provided without judicial review, as the courts already approve almost all the requests.
Here, in Zion, we can only be jealous about the US Citizens who are abhorred; Israel addressed Google for subscriber information (not by the Metadata act, as it does not apply to Google), about 350 times since 2009. Google responded to most of these requests; meaning that there are 350 people in Israel that the government obtained their correspondence, and that we cannot be certain that they were informed about such intrusion. But Google is an exemption, it provides us with reports.
Israeli nationals are always subjected to espionage and surveillance: employers read your email, the state sets up traffic cameras, parking cameras, security cameras and protection cameras. And all this time we ask: do we need protection from criminals or the state?
I find the American outrage hilariously amusing in so many ways. 1) Google, Facebook etc. companies have been using much more than “who have you called” for a long time, text mining not only e-mails you send, but those you receive, your chats, your posts, all of it. They have done so for their profit only, with no benign goal in mind at all ever. Compare this to US government, which has at least as one benign goal, also protecting citizens from terrorist attacks. When the companies do it, it is “fine” “I have nothing to hide”, when government does it…OUTRAGE! How on earth can this logical contradiction exist in the heads of Americans? Why are Americans afraid of their government more than companies, which have no morale what-so-ever? How is the world organized in their heads? Business->good; elected government->bad. 2) Also very amusing were the comments from the NSA “blue-badges”, who apparently have an attitude that doing things which are in the grey area of the law on their fellow citizens is OK, and if someone blows the whistle, he/she is a traitor. These people must also be disconnected from reality – they have a law in their country and as administrative personnel, they should aim to obey the law and its spirit and respect the privacy of the people who pay their salaries – the American citizens. But no, apparently not. American logic is sometimes very hard to understand.
Joe, let me try to help you out a bit here.
Companies do not have the power to arrest you, imprison you, or seize your assets.
Also, Americans do not look at government as inherently moral or benign, in fact quite the opposite. That is why we have our 2nd Amendment.
Thank you Jim T. Is it so that companies (in America) do not have the power to profile you and price their service according to that profile, e.g. wrt. health insurance? Insurance? Your income level? They cannot seize your assets, but they can deny crucial service…which might leave you penniless, or in the case of health insurance…mmm…sick? In some cases dead, since your public sector is thin (e.g. when compared to Scandinavia)? Imprison you or arrest you…true, but they can sue you, you can countersue, but would you have money to fight e.g. Google in court? “Americans do not look at government as inherently moral or benign, in fact quite the opposite. That is why we have our 2nd Amendment.” My point exactly: that is what I am confused about: why do you have a paranoid outlook towards your government but not of companies? You do not elect your companies, but you (albeit not very directly) elect your administrators. Yet you trust the latter less. You don’t trust in your capability to vote in a way that would result in a good outcome for you? May be very true. G.W. Bush elected twice.
Your Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Authorities- Metadata) act sounds quite tame. In fact here in the US it is routine and quite accepted for law enforcement to request and obtain data from telecommunications providers and the likes of facebook etc to aid in solving crimes. The NSA program is on an entirely different scale however. It involves total, sustained access to all online and phone data of just about anyone without cause, without ‘requesting’ access and without a public act informing citizens of the fact. In fact the big deal about it is that, it’s not merely that NSA CAN do this at any time to anyone without having to disclose a reason for it, but that they DO already maintain data on almost all private citizens, criminal or not for mining purposes. People have always known that they conduct surveillance, it is the scope and the scale that is breathtaking.
As an Israeli citizen living in the so-called “west bank”. I can safely assume ALL of my communications are being monitored by at the very least, the Mossad, the Shin Bet, the CIA and, of course, the NSA. I hope they listen carefully to my conversations, perhaps they’ll learn something!
> Google, Facebook etc. companies have been using much more than “who have you called†for a long time, text mining not only e-mails you send, but those you receive, your chats, your posts, all of it.
These corporations doesn’t examine what’s going on your account, they cluster you to a profile to serve relevant ads and etc but it’s done at a level that doesn’t reveal any personal details. Taking it a step further, even different internal services at Google cant access another internal service’s information about the user if user has not granted permissions.
Besides these facts, corporations are limited by the law when it comes to using your private information. I’d suggest you to apply for an internship at one of these companies to see how seriously privacy is taken, at a cost of slowing down the productivity with legal reviews, complex infrastructure and security reviews.
You can not compare USA with Israel. USA is still a capitalist country, a constitutional republic, but Israel is more socialistic democracy. In a socialistic democracy the surveillance is not a big deal but in a constitutional republic like US it is a very big deal.
OK, meaning: Lot of other states will just take (or already have taken 😉 ) the book as a blueprint.
Interesting, how long it will take in EU to deploy such surveillance technologies.
Surveillance has zero to do with with whether a country is socialist or constitutional republic. Most americans do not believe we are really a constitutional republic anyway as there is no evidence of it.
So Jim are you going to fight our militarized police or the U.S. military with your personal weans? Because Israel is full of weapons and I don’t see them going that route. This 2nd amendment defends us against tyranny nonsense is as outdated and dogmatic as Nelu’s beliefs about political systems and surveillance. Obviously and clearly not true and only a fanatic would still think they are.
1. Obama publicly backing PRISM will cause privacy to cave in – worldwide, in many countries. It’s a question of legitmacy, if the US do it, many countries in EU and elsewhere will do it too.
2. NSA can access [i]your[/i] cloud data, too, since they have backdoors to all major cloud hosters. I can understand this is not a concern in Israel as long as your own goverment is so dangerous, but it affects a lot of people outside US and adds to the public outrage, and rightly so.
3. The data collected by PRISM and the secret backdoors installed everywhere [i]will[/i] get abused sooner or later. The NSA may be a joke, but the US goverment in general certainly isn’t.
@DARWIN>Surveillance has zero to do with with whether a country is socialist or constitutional republic.
It’s about the CONSEQUENCES of surveillance for the people under different political systems.
Well, in Israel there is a strong point to it: many islamists either live inside the country or cross the border daily, and quite a number of those aren’t very peaceful. Contrary to U.S., where islamists strike once in 10 years or so, Israel suffers from attacks *on a daily basis*.
So yeah, I’m pro-regime, better alive than dead.
Darwin, I lived 28 years in socialistic democracy, and I know very well what means not to have the 2nd amendment from US constitution. Means that politicians are “super people” or “more equals” than the regular people. And they can do what they want. These days US has a very bad path… the path which is going to Europe way like. I lived in Europe for 28 years and I know what I’m speaking about. As you can see we are in 2013 and Europe is still in recension (from 2008) and is not any good news that Europe will come back from recession very soon. This is what socialism is doing… No rights… No freedom… 60% taxes on income, 24% sales tax… Europe is one of the most regulated markets on the planet and regulated in very wrong way. Did you ever asked why US became so developed and so powerful? What do you think about the best constitution ever existed in the world? What about the freedom and liberties which this constitution gives you? I’m not a US citizen, but I live in US from 6 years and I lived in many other countries in my life, but neither has the freedom which US give us.
germany and britain and i guess the rest of europe is absolutely a technocratic surveillance empire. everything you do online is monitored and mobile phones are listened too.
they use these militairy technologies against us.
main goal is data collection, infiltration of politics and social engineering also gang stalking.
now they have video cameras and microphones which are non visible in your private appartements.
it has a lot to do with israel since most of the surveillance products come from israel.