Govt. Surveillance Using Unconventional Methods To Listen To Your Conversation

Governments monitoring citizens is nothing new. Since the formation of organized civilizations, leaders have sought out information regarding those who live under their rule, leadership, dictatorship, or other form of government. 

This goes beyond informants and spies, often relying on technology of the day to monitor specific conversations to identify potential threats against the country. 

With technology growing at a rapid rate, governments around the world (not just the United States) are turning to more unconventional methods to listen to individual conversations, including, potentially, yours. 

While this is nothing new, it is important to understand the ramifications.

A Brief History on Government Surveillance

During and immediately after World War II, mail correspondence coming in and out of the country often had government officials reading letters. East Germany and the Soviet Union would monitor individuals who they believed might defect to the West. 

Earlier on, in the United States, Herbert O. Yardley sat in charge of a group of Army code breakers using code name "Black Chamber" to spy on communications within the United States.

Towards the end of the Second World War, Operation Shamrock evolved from Black Chamber in 1945. The United States had three communication companies handling the majority of all correspondence made within the U.S. (Western Union, ITT and RCA Global). 

The Army received direct, legal access to all three of these companies, making it possible to read all individual conversations.

To monitor potential Soviet sympathizers and other possible communists, the NSA was founded in 1952, taking over for Operation Shamrock. However, the federal government did not openly and publicly acknowledge the existence of the NSA until 1975. 

During the 1960s, the NSA created Project Minaret, used to monitor and record telephone communication. Giant warehouses full of tape recorders were used to automatically record phone conversations when lines connected.

Up until a congressional investigation and open hearing known as the Church Committee hearings in 1975, the NSA operated behind the scenes, illegally, obtaining information. The committee found this to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment, so it passed The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

This act required the NSA to go to a secret court to receive permission in order to monitor specific individuals, both within the U.S. and abroad.

Current Techniques and Methods to Monitor Your Conversation

In the book 1984 by George Orwell, the government could more or less listen in on everything a person did. That, currently, is becoming more and more the case. While there likely isn't someone sitting in a dark room filled with cigarette smoke, listening to your conversation, what is going in is known as data mining.

Data mining is something almost all major tech companies do. It uses information from a variety of sources and cross references everything to identify possible traits. It helps come up with your search engine results and Facebook advertisements. 

It also helps determine whether you are involved in a possible terrorist plot. When you send an email, instant message, buy something online or visit a Web site, all this information is sent through a fiber-optic splitter, with some of this information obtained by an NSA data intercept station and cataloged via keywords. 

This is saved based on your IP address and other specific information to cross reference what you say, do, buy and visit online with possible threats. In other words, everything you do online, while not necessarily directly monitored, is mined for information.

Today, video and audio surveillance in public locations is sent to police stations and government facilities. It makes it possible to track down criminals more easily, but it also makes it possible to listen in directly and record a conversation you have on your phone, or just with the person you're sitting next to. 

If you have a problem with the President, or the bus driver, the audio recorder will pick it up.

When you ride on buses or trains in many parts of the United States, what you say could be recorded. Get on a New Jersey Transit light rail train in Hoboken or Jersey City, for example, and you might notice an inconspicuous sign that says "video and audio systems in use."

For a lot of people, audio recording seems like crossing a line.

"It is creepy that they want to record our conversations," says Jeanne LoCicero, a lawyer with the ACLU of New Jersey. "We all have a reasonable expectation that we can have private conversations in public and this really is undermining that principle."

Sometimes the methods used to gather information are right out of spy movies.  Jeff Harp, a KPIX 5 security analyst and former FBI special agent revealed how listening devices were planted around the San Francisco Bay Area in an effort to catch real estate agents rigging foreclosure auctions, "they put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment. I mean, theres microphones that are planted in places that people dont think about, because thats the intent!"

Surveillance devices can often be hidden in plain sight.  LED fixtures are the "backbone" of a new surveillance system scrutinizing and recording us. The New York Times reported that 171 LED fixtures inside Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport are "watching" us.

Using an array of sensors and eight video cameras around the terminal, the light fixtures are part of a new wireless network that collects and feeds data into software that can spot long lines, recognize license plates and even identify suspicious activity, sending alerts to the appropriate staff. 

It's not the "green" side of saving energy by automatically turning the lights off and on that has the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey excited and "already talking about expanding it to other terminals and buildings." Instead, the excitement comes from the mountains of data captured by sensors and analyzed by software about "the habits of ordinary citizens."

Furthermore, home tech is becoming Internet connected. Home lights, refrigerators, ovens, coffee pots and everything else come with built-in Wi-Fi. Now, with the data mining, the government is able to determine what you like to eat, when you drink your morning coffee and even watch you through cameras built into motion detectors (in your lights) and through the webcam in your computer.

The Government is Listening

While government surveillance is nothing new, modern technology is, and governments around the world are taking advantage, making it possible for government facilities and organizations everywhere to know just about everything about you and your family.