Elizabeth Jorgensen, Dem. Now Soc 122

Elizabeth Jorgensen

Dem. Now Summaries

3/2/14 Soc. Mov

Big Oil and Bad Air: Report Exposes Link Between Fracking and Toxic Air Emissions in Texas:

This show focuses on the issue of ‘fracking’ in areas throughout Texas and the environmental/health issues that are a direct effect from natural gas development. It focuses on Eagle ford, a 20,000 mile area in South Texas which has become one of the biggest booms in the nation with very little awareness. This causes huge concern for the large number of pollutants going into the air, many leading to long term side effects that are linked to health issues such as the development of cancer. Individuals living in this rural part of Texas have little resources to turn to and people to protect their rights when it comes to this issue. Individuals are directly affected by these pollutants even if they haven’t leased any land for drilling, with hundreds of homes lined with wells polluting the air. The people that are being affected by this drilling should explore other options for help while awareness is shared concerning this new drilling area. Before watching this segment, I hadn’t heard anything about this new boom and the side effects the individuals are having from the pollutants. There are only 5 permanent air monitors in Eagle Ford, none being located in areas of major drilling. Instead of exploiting the people and environment, more regulations should be put on big oil companies and the emissions from drilling. 

(http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/27/big_oil_and_bad_air_report)

Peeping Webcam? With NSA Help, British Spy Agency intercepted Millions of Yahoo Chat images:

This show focuses on the issue of documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealing webcams being tapped by the Government Communications Headquarters and the NSA, the National Security Agency. The codename for this surveillance program was called ‘Optic Nerve’, composed of pictures compiled from yahoo chats. In the documents, between 3-11% of the yahoo webcam images were considered ‘undesirable’. During a 6 month period in 2008 the program tapped more than 1.8 million yahoo users accounts worldwide. The program targeted individuals through facial recognition, identifying if one user was creating multiple accounts for issues dealing with terrorism. The leak of this documentation by the NSA and GCH is an extreme violation of privacy, expanding issues dealing with this topic. Racial profiling is also a concern used with government webcam tapping. The documents released also showed agencies using different types of cameras to tap individuals, such as Xbox 360 game consoles. This is absolutely terrifying to think about. Images and web chats that individuals find harmless can be deemed undesirable through different agencies standards and individuals could be under surveillance for harmless actives. These agencies should demonstrate concrete evidence towards the efficiency of mass surveillance before this type of extreme violation of privacy is allowed to be used. I think it’s just another excuse for government agencies to have more control over society, and this type of control causes more harm than good in the long run and only increases hostilities already held towards government control. 

(http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/28/peeping_webcam_with_nsa_help_british)