National Security

National security is when the government or its parliaments vows to protect its country and citizens against all national threats and crisis with all its power and ability.

To ensure the security of a nation, data tracking is one of the biggest ways to prevent harm and make sure there’s safety in the nation. NSA (National Security Agency) is currently an agency that the United states uses to ensure the safety of the nation. Under NSA’s international surveillance authority it allows the agency to tracks and collects data such as phone calls, web searches, emails, and keyword searches from all over the world [1].

With the ability to track phone calls and movements of a person, analyst can use the data received to make links amongst people with hidden relationships with ulterior motives that may present a threat to the nation [2]. The way this works is, analyst use a technique called “Co-Traveler Analytics”, in which it focuses on location data through GCID (Global Cellphone-Tower Identifiers). It computes the time, place, and date of any device within an hour time frame that is in proximity to a known threat [1]. It allows NSA to look for any overlapping of a device/person to the target. The use of this helps prevent terrorist attacks, threat plotting, and any other threats that may be harmful to the nation before it occurs.

Resources
[1] How the NSA is tracking people right now. (n.d.). Retrieved April 06, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/world/how-the-nsa-is-tracking-people-right-now/634/

[2] Gellman, B., & Soltani, A. (2013, December 04). NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide. Retrieved April 06, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html?utm_term=.36ca98aee940