In Part Two of “United States of Secrets”, shows more of the story of Edward Snowden, is an ex-agent. who leaked many top secret information to the press, who then let the people know what was happening with NSA. U.S. citizens then find out that NSA has been watching/listening to citizens through the internet. A major site that they have been watching was google and which allows them to see where or what you have been looking up. Google’s gmail has allowed NSA to scan mail to benefit the program. NSA uses many other tactics to get away with this unjust and inhumane way of gaining information. All the information that we are putting into google or searching topics in the search bar, shows up in NSA headquarters where they evaluate what has been taken place. Taking this information is an invasion of privacy and I would say, is not the right way to go about “searching for terrorists”.

In part one of the “United States of Secrets” it explains how the government created a program after the 9/11 attack. The program was called NSA, and was created to gather personal information of the people to prevent terrorist attacks that might occur. The government controlled pretty much the worldwide internet system collecting mass data through emails, the telephone, and text to manage and hear in on the conversations that were taken place to watch out for any suspicion. The program was questioned illegal and not morally right but the government continued to go through anyways. This controversial topic brought up two main concepts that we have talked about in class: network and interface. Without networks, the government wouldn't have been able to collect all the data that they did with the help of many different companies to keep the program up and running. Using the computers, they were able to access all the information they needed to stop the terrorists.  

United States of Secrets Part 2: This part of the documentary delves more into the network of surveillance that NSA's program used. The NSA got information from everything it could get its hands on. Phone companies willingly gave NSA private phone records in exchange for more funds and in turn, more customers and more popularity. It was discovered that NSA was copying information from AT&T with the phone company's knowledge and compliance. NSA got information from emails as well. It hacked into companies' computers and break into private browser data (like Google's) for information. Phone companies seemed perfectly comfortable with sharing, while internet browsers were less so. During this time, Google created gmail which read the contents of private emails in order to determine the types of ads would pop up for different people. If Google could invade privacy for marketing, why was it wrong for the government to do so to put a stop to terrorism? Facebook was also making a rise in this time and it and Google raced to build the best databases. The NSA began "piggybacking" on the cookies that many programs (including Google and facebook and commercial sites such as amazon and ebay) use for marketing. Basically, NSA's network of surveillance was large; it included information from communication, social media, and commercial uses of US citizens.

United States of Secrets Part 1: This part of the documentary describes a surveillance program used by the US government and the controversy that surrounded it. This program was developed by a group of people to identify terrorists and stop terrorist activity before it happened. It would gather phone and internet information such as calls, emails, browser searches, etc from, if not all, most of american citizens. The program would compile the information it gathered, and sort through it for potential terrorist information. The early type of program, nicknamed "thin thread," had a data "privacy" section where it basically incrpted the information from anyone who did not display any terrorist activity. This made it so the information from everyday US citizens could not be intruded on by any other person. However, after 9/11, NSA got rid of the privacy setting because they had the authorization to do so in order to prevent another event like 9/11. With this dismissal of privacy, came doubts that the program was legal anymore. Through much back and forth, the press was eventually tipped and news got out that the government was spying on people's lives. The president denied the idea that the program was illegal and lied about how it operated in an attempt to "tone down" thoughts and reactions to it. But in reality, NSA's surveillance network extended farther and was much worse than officials made it out to be.

In part two of the documentary it explained networking and mostly through the main internet companies such as google, apple, facebook, and a couple more. These companies were working closely with NSA and leaking information to them and essentially working behind the public and even government officials. They started the PRISM which was a program NSA used to gather information from your search history, emails, and live chats. They made money off of it because of the relevancy of the ads on the side of your computer screen while on email or even facebook. This was invading people’s privacy and they still deny it as purposely taking information and sharing it through the cookies, but they were. This also connects to archiving in a way because they are storing personal information and facts about us and publicly displaying them through our ads that we see and also just how they are always watching what we are doing. This artifact shows that everything we do they are watching and it is hard to hide anything or make it private on our computers.

In part one of the documentary we learned about NSA and the initiation of the program. The program was started right after the September 11 attacks to try and catch terrorists in foreign countries before the attacks took place. There was a lot of issues with the privacy of people and the leaking of information to the NSA. The main goal was to monitor internet and phone activity and they used information which was one of the issues. All of the data they were receiving legally or not was information which they could use to in anyway, but they said they only used it legally to help the public. Edward Snowden was one of the main people who leaked a lot of highly important private information. I chose this artifact because it is eye catching and really shows the idea behind the program and how they are always watching and looking into our information even when we least expect it or are unaware of it.

This video related to the concept of information because we can see that government and everyone can able to track you through your browse on the Internet and you will be monitored without your notice. Therefore, all the information that you put on the Internet definitely could be invaded even though you set it in private.  

Related to the artifact, it shows how people’s activity and privacy get spy from different methods and devices, such as Google or phone's records.