Surviellance

Ahh iv been waiting so long for this topic to come up, as this is the question that i am doing for my essay!!since iv already done my research i came into todays lecture thinking, we definitly need surviellance when we are online, because it seems only bad things happen on the interent, and i think these badies have kind of ruined it for internet users like us who use it fully for recreational purposes. But todays lecture broadened my horizons on surviellance, as i never really thought about workplace and music surviellance, although it is such a common occurance in todays society. Because when i think of a need for survillance i think we need it to catch criminals that are involved in identity theft, cyber terrorism, online stalking or bullying, the makers or worms, viruses trojan horses etc. And these people i think are the ones that have turned the internet into big brother, they are the trouble makers that no dont allow people reading there emails to have any privacy whatsoever.
So when erica brought up ECHELON and CARNIVORE it really grabbed my attention, as it was something i had never heard of or thought about. I did a quick search on ECHELON and this was what i found: ECHELONECHELON is a term associated with a global network of computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted messages for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses. Every word of every message in the frequencies and channels selected at a station is automatically searched. The processors in the network are known as the ECHELON Dictionaries. ECHELON connects all these computers and allows the individual stations to function as distributed elements an integrated system. An ECHELON station's Dictionary contains not only its parent agency's chosen keywords, but also lists for each of the other four agencies in the UKUSA system [NSA, GCHQ, DSD, GCSB and CSE] .
Now as i said i had never heard of this but i think in order for the internet to run smoothly i think we need a worldwide ECHELON, with specific laws that they and us computer users must abide, these laws also ave to be flexible and not too strict, but strict enough to catch criminals. As erica said this plan has worked so far, it has enabled security forces to catch terrorists before planning attacks, so i feel if it can do this than it should be able to catch any other criminal. I realise it is more than likely that countries will disagree on some terms, but i like to think it could work. But i think until internet security catches up than the internet will continue to be filled with criminals breaking the law.