For: Surveillance (2008 film)

Surveillance, or /sɚˈveɪləns/, is the monitoring of the behavior of a person or group of people, often in a surreptitious manner. Although the word surveillance in French literally means "watching over", the term is often used for all forms of observation or monitoring, not just visual observation.

The word surveillance is commonly used to describe observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Internet traffic or phone calls). However, surveillance can also refer to simple, relatively no- or low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception.

Surveillance is very useful to governments and law enforcement to maintain social control, recognize and monitor threats, and prevent/investigate criminal activity. With the advent of programs such as the Total Information Awareness program and ADVISE, technologies such as high speed surveillance computers and biometrics software, and laws such as the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, governments now possess an unprecedented ability to monitor the activities of their subjects.

However, many civil rights and privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU have expressed concern that by allowing continual increases in government surveillance of citizens that we will end up in a mass surveillance society, with extremely limited, or non-existent political and/or personal freedoms. Fears such as this have lead to numerous lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T.

Computer surveillance

There is far too much data on the internet for human investigators to manually search through all of it. So automated Internet surveillance computers sift through the vast amount of intercepted internet traffic, and filter out and report to human investigators those bits of information which are "interesting" -- such as the use of certain words or phrases, visiting certain types of web sites, or communicating via email or chat with a certain individual or group. Billions of dollars per year are spent, by agencies such as the Information Awareness Office, NSA, and the FBI, to develop, purchase, implement, and operate systems such as Carnivore, NarusInsight, and ECHELON to intercept and analyze all of this data, and extract only the information which is useful to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Computers are also a surveillance target because of the personal data stored on them. If someone is able to install software (either physically or remotely), such as the FBI's "Magic Lantern" and CIPAV, on a computer system, they can easily gain unauthorized access to this data.