Israel's People & Technology: PRISM in Israel
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| Graphical representation of Israel's electronic snooping story: People & Tech |
Israel's technology site "People and Technology" reports on security expert's' opinion of Israeli's privacy in the electronic world as exposed as in the US. After the public exposure of the PRISM system in the US by Edward Snowden, technologists from around the world are wondering how much of their information is in their government's data banks. Or even more disturbing: how much information is in the NSA, CIA, or other American security agency's from "my own" e-mail and internal data? In Israel it goes without saying that the state and its security organizations snoop on potential security risk suspects. Israel is not only under physical attacks, virtual electronic attacks are also a daily part of life here.
Israel's security threats and long history of strong and effective security operations give the average citizen an impression of being secured, but also being a potential snooping target. What is different between Israel and most large western states is the scale and cost of security efforts. While the US and UK is expected to spend and deploy a large electronic data gathering systems. Here we expect electronic security systems to be more manual and targeted. Maybe less formal in terms of individual (personal) rights: security organizations may not need to obtain a warrant before tapping or receiving data from the commercial organizations (i.e. Google, Yahoo or ISP). Although Israel is known for it's technology strength, the country is still decades behind the leading western countries in satellite communication, internet data processing and services, and the latest electronic data gathering and processing. Israel has been known to cooperate with other countries when it comes to gathering and analyzing potential threat information. But in the case of PRISM and other super secret electronic data snooping programs, it is hard to imagine a state to collaborate.
The story in "People and Technology" did not make enough waves to become a mainstream media issue. I presume that if Israelis were concerned or surprised by expert opinion on electronic data gathering without strong full judicial approval (either warrent or a blanket agreement on specific group of suspects) there would be more stories in the media. But I also suspect of Israelis to be more concerned about the security of the state and less worried about individual rights. After all, when it comes to the state security agencys' ability to get into anyone's personal information, Israel has not experienced as much abuse as in other countries (thinking of British newspapers tapping into cell phones of British royals)., But than again, mybe it is only a matter of time until we find out what the security agencies are really doing. Stay tuned, maybe we are in for an Israeli Snowden (or is it an electronic era Vanunu).
Israel's security threats and long history of strong and effective security operations give the average citizen an impression of being secured, but also being a potential snooping target. What is different between Israel and most large western states is the scale and cost of security efforts. While the US and UK is expected to spend and deploy a large electronic data gathering systems. Here we expect electronic security systems to be more manual and targeted. Maybe less formal in terms of individual (personal) rights: security organizations may not need to obtain a warrant before tapping or receiving data from the commercial organizations (i.e. Google, Yahoo or ISP). Although Israel is known for it's technology strength, the country is still decades behind the leading western countries in satellite communication, internet data processing and services, and the latest electronic data gathering and processing. Israel has been known to cooperate with other countries when it comes to gathering and analyzing potential threat information. But in the case of PRISM and other super secret electronic data snooping programs, it is hard to imagine a state to collaborate.
The story in "People and Technology" did not make enough waves to become a mainstream media issue. I presume that if Israelis were concerned or surprised by expert opinion on electronic data gathering without strong full judicial approval (either warrent or a blanket agreement on specific group of suspects) there would be more stories in the media. But I also suspect of Israelis to be more concerned about the security of the state and less worried about individual rights. After all, when it comes to the state security agencys' ability to get into anyone's personal information, Israel has not experienced as much abuse as in other countries (thinking of British newspapers tapping into cell phones of British royals)., But than again, mybe it is only a matter of time until we find out what the security agencies are really doing. Stay tuned, maybe we are in for an Israeli Snowden (or is it an electronic era Vanunu).
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