Knowledge is power. It is an elementary axiom
instilled in school children the world over. Knowledge is created through an exchange
of ideas and concepts through multiple mediums. A threat to this exchange of
ideas is a direct challenge to the creation of new knowledge.
We
are witnessing a very real challenge to the free exchange of ideas around the
world with the revelations last week of a massive NSA spy network that essentially
monitors all forms of communication. In short, the US government wants to know
everything we do, think, and express at all times. Ostensibly it is to protect
us from whatever bogeyman the government is currently after at any given
moment, be it a courageous whistleblower or an alleged terrorist lurking in
some half-forgotten cave in the middle of nowhere. But is it really about
protection from bogeymen here and abroad, or does the government have
alternative goals?
To
be charitable, even if this massive amount of surveillance is a mixture of good
intentions (security) and ulterior motives (power maximization), it is still an
abridgment of fundamental rights that are a violation of the constitution and
good consciousness. The US has decided
to ignore all reasonable degrees of privacy in order to gain total information
awareness. In this post, I would like to share some thoughts on this
controversy and highlight some of the important questions that this latest fiasco
raises.
To provide context, Truthdig.com did a good job of summarizing what we’ve learned so far:
To provide context, Truthdig.com did a good job of summarizing what we’ve learned so far:
On Thursday it was revealed that the NSA claims internally that it has been using a top-secret spying program called PRISM to gain direct access to personal data belonging to customers of top Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo. Many of those companies denied having this relationship with the NSA, but acknowledged, according to The New York Times, that they cooperated “at least a bit.
On Wednesday, Americans learned that the National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of the telecommunication giant Verizon.
On Friday we were told that President Obama had ordered his top national security and intelligence officers to construct an apparatus for globaly cyberattacks, which includes a list of targets overseas and potentially within the country.
On Saturday it was disclosed that the NSA has a sophisticated tool for recording and analyzing the sources of its collected intelligence, a fact that gives the lie to the agency’s repeated assertions that it cannot keep track of all of the surveillance it performs on Americans’ communications.
What all of this demonstrates is that the US
government is in the business of monopolizing information in order to use it
for whatever means it deems appropriate. That means the government has the
ability to access your private discussions with friends, families, business partners,
employers, and others. It means the government has the potential for total
knowledge awareness, knowing what you do, who you do it with, and at what time.
But what if some other government got a hold of these massive data sets? As
Conor Friedersdorf
notes, "In the wrong hands, it could enable blackmail on a massive scale, widespread manipulation of U.S. politics, industrial espionage against American buisnesses;, [sic] and other mischief I can't even imagine." Is this something we the people should accept?
I think the answer is an unequivocal no. The
government has no right to know everything. Privacy is a right that is not only
enshrined in the fourth amendment of the US constitution, but is a fundamental
right that all human beings deserve. Human beings deserve the right to know that
our bodies and minds are our own, not to be surveilled or observed at the whims
of others. This type of dragnet surveillance grossly infringes on our rights.
This surveillance can be easily abused and, most probably, already has. To go
pop culture, it reminds me of Enemy of the State, where spooks turned Will
Smith’s life upside down because they thought he knew the wrong kind of
secrets. Or in the Dark Knight when Lucius realizes that Batman has created a
spy network that monitors everyone in Gotham and tenders his resignation
because “this is a power no man should have.” I agree with Lucius that this
is most certainly a power that no man – or government – should have, especially
our own. Snowdon believes this so much that he has tendered his resignation from this alleged beacon of freedom and democracy to seek refuge in an alleged communist
autocracy. Inverted reality, no? As the article in Truthdig.com continued:
"Privacy is a deadly business. Psychologist tell us it is necessary for the development of personal independence. Artists, philosophers and scientists recognize its essential role in the birth of new ideas. And those who have gotten captured or killed for their political commitments worldwide, ever since someone stood outside of a tent and listened in on the conversation inside, know it is an essential condition for political freedom. Freedom is a value Americans love to claim they love."
I
value freedom, privacy, and the desire to continue to exercise these rights.
However, the NSA and other US spy agencies have developed a massive surveillance
state in which the free exchange of ideas is being severely undermined. This is
wrong and it is not in line with the values that America purports to hold. The
construction of America’s authoritarian, corporatist state has been in the
offing since 911, but a deep-seated disease has rotted away our political
institutions and is undermining what is left of our “free” society. As Edward Snowdon noted, "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things." Neither do I.
For further reading:
Everything
you need to know about the NSA’s phone records scandal
By: Timothy B. Lee, 6-6-13 Washington Post
How
Congress unknowingly legalized PRISM in 2007
By: Timothy B. Lee, 6-6-13 Washington Post
President Obama’s Dragnet
By: NY
Times Editorial Board, 6-6-13 NY Times
U.S.
Confirms That it Gathers Online Data Overseas
By: Charlie Savage, Edward Wyatt and Peter
Baker, 6-6-13 NY Times
The National Security Agency:
surveillance giant with eyes on America
By: Ewen
MacAskill, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald, 6-6-13 The Guardian/UK
How
to navigate the Internet around PRISM
By: Kris Holt, 6-9-13, Salon.com
