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Ben McCoy
Rasheedah Alexander
English 112
3/26/2014
They See Everything

Christopher Soghoian, a researcher and activist, effectively spoke about government
surveillance in a way that was easy to understand and listen to. Soghoian has past experience in
the topic that he is speaking about and has good credibility. Using different communication
techniques Soghoians speech was communicate effectively to the audience. He presents all his
information in different ways he used PowerPoint, federal documents, and videos. The speaker
successfully communicated and supported his message to the audience. What is the title of the
speech?
At the introduction of Soghoians speech he states his purpose for speaking. Soghoian
started his main idea of this speech by saying, There have now been over the last few years an
industry of companies who provide surveillance technology to governments, specifically
technology that allows those governments to hack into the computers of surveillance targets.
The problem that he is speaking about is that the government can watch everything that you are
doing. The government can read peoples texts, listen to peoples phone calls and use peoples
webcams to observe them, the government uses hacking companies to carry out their
surveillance. Soghoian assumes that his audience uses electrical devices like cell phones and
computers. Soghoians purpose is to inform the audience that the government is watching
everyone without the people even know it is happening. Interesting
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Soghoian started his speech by speaking about a man that was tortured by his
government. The government used hacking tools to listen to his phone calls and read his text
messages. Starting out his speech with a related past event, Soghoian is creating concrete support
to build his message around. He also gains credibility to his topic by introducing his speech with
a situation directly related to his topic. Soghoian says, One prominent Bahraini activist, who
was arrested and tortured by his government, has said that the interrogators showed him
transcripts of his telephone calls and text messages. Opening his speech by speaking about a
past events he is allowing his audience to start to think about the subject he is going to speak
about. Engaging his audience at the start of the speech will help keep his audience entertained
and interested in his topic throughout his speech. In this speech the speaker supported his
message with many different sources of information. What is significant to the historical
occasion surrounding this text?
In this speech Soghoian is demonstrating the logical side of thinking. Appealing to logos
means that he is trying to appeal to his listeners logical side of thinking. When trying to appeal
to the logical side of thinking Soghoian uses supporting evidence and examples. Using many
different forms of evidence he is engaging his audience to think logically. In this speech he says,
When the government of Egypt fell in 2011, activists raided the office of the secret police, and
among the many documents they found was this document by the Gamma Corporation. In this
statement his is using dates and evidence that provides support for his message. Soghoian
supports all of his statements with situations that have happened in real life. Using this type of
support the speaker is keeping his audience engaged and thinking about his topic. Soghoians
speech is well constructed, therefor people will respond to his speech better than a speech that
was not constructed well. Who might be a secondary audience for this text?
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The organization of this speech is very good, Soghoian arranged his speech in a way that
helps his audience to fully understand his message. He starts his speech with incidents related to
his topic. Then he explains his topic in more detail and explains why it is important and how it
related to his audience. By relating the topic to his audience he is keeping his audience engaged.
Soghoian states, the fact that the police can sort of sit in an air-conditioned office and remotely
monitor someone without them having any idea that it's going on. To increase the relevance of
his topic he presents his audience with documents, pictures, and videos that are related to his
topic. Using visual aids throughout his speech it allows his audience to stay entertained and
interested. By putting these visual aids into his speech he is creating more concrete evidence that
helps him support his thesis. Starting out his speech he created the foundation to his speech and
as he spoke more he created the structure of his speech by providing more evidence and support.
What methods, figures of speech are used?
In this speech Soghoian uses a lot of evidence to support his thesis. He uses evidence like
pictures, documents, and videos. Evidence is used to help the speaker influence the audience to
listen and believe what the speaker is trying to say. You can tell that Soghoain did a lot of
research because he had evidence for almost every statement he said. One form of evidence he
uses is a hacking teams video, The video they've produced is very sexy, and so I'm going to
play you a clip just so you can get a feel both for the capabilities of the software but also how it's
marketed to their government clients. Using evidence like this give great credibility to the
speaker for using documents that are not accessible to the average person. Visual aids such as
videos, appeal to parts of his audience that like other information than just power points or
pictures. Videos also help the audience stay interested in the topic because rather than just
reading slides they watch the evidence.
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Soghoian used many different forms of stylistic techniques. Using stylistic techniques
Soghoian is trying to make his speech more memorable and convincing. He uses techniques
like repetition, allusion and metaphors. One example of him using repetition is when he says,
So governments around the world. He repeats this statement throughout his speech because he
is trying to emphasize that many different governments use hacking companies to see what their
citizens are doing. Allusion is another technique that Soghoian uses throughout his speech. As he
presents information and examples to the audience he is referencing them with one another. He is
using allusion to help make the connection to all of his examples and his speech. Soghoian is
comparing many different things in his speech. At one point he is comparing two governments
that are very different from each other. He says And so for that reason, you see that the
government of, say, Tunisia, might use the same software as the government of Germany. By
comparing these two governments he is showing that two very different governments are both
using the same type of technologies.
Soghoian successfully explained to his audience that governments across the world are
using companies such as Gama and hack team to observe their citizens without them even
knowing. By combing many techniques like repetition, allusion and metaphors he is keeping his
audience engages and interested. His organization is another key aspect of his speech. Soghoian
organized his speech in a way that the audience could follow what he is trying to say. He doesnt
not start his speech with his thesis but starts with an example, starting his speech like this
engages his audience right at the start. Soghoian uses many different forms of evidence to
support his thesis. He uses videos, pictures, and government documents to help his present his
information. By combining all of these techniques throughout his speech Soghoian is very
effective in trying to communicate his information to the audience.
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Incorrect Format for MLA works Cited page No title. 82

Christopher Soghoian. Government surveillance this is just the beginning TED
Fellows Retreat. August 2013. Speech.