The Value of Privacy

In recent weeks we have been re-alerted to a most scandalizing fact, namely that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies have been spying on all internet and cell phone communications on an unprecedented level. I say re-alerted because we were first made aware of this in May of 2006 when USA Today reported on the NSA building a huge database for compiling phone records. There is a long discussion of the aftermath of these revelations here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy . But the reality is that this is nothing new. Our government, despite getting its hand slapped previously for warrant-less searches of wireless communications, has expanded the program to include all internet communications as well. Given the strictures of the 4th amendment, many are arguing that this is a clear violation of our constitutional rights. I will not argue with them, at least not on theory. However, it is worth pointing out that the Obama administration and the intelligence community have included such legal safeguards as they think are needed to pass constitutional scrutiny. Likely that argument will not be settled until it is in front of the US Supreme Court. But ignoring the pure legal arguments, it is hard to square our nation's stated values of liberty, freedom of speech and right to privacy with the actions of our government.

On the other side of the coin, I understand where the government is coming from. Since September 11th 2001, we as a nation have been made more alert to the dangers posed by terrorists, both foreign and domestic. The US public has been clamoring for the intelligence community to improve our safety in this new and dangerous world. In intelligence work, data is key, and when most of the world's internet communications come through US hubs, gathering that data was easy and convenient. The belief that if we just had more information that we could prevent the next attack drove the community to use questionable means to increase the amount of data they could analyze. It's easy to sympathize with them, especially with civilian lives on the line.

The problem with this theory is that, in many previous cases of terrorism, we already had the tools we needed to prevent disaster. What we lacked was the competence to interpret that data correctly and prevent the attacks. Take Sept. 11th, the Bush administration had received intelligence about Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and their readiness to attack the USA. Had these warnings been heeded, we may well have avoided the disaster that occurred. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html . More recently, the intelligence community ignored Russian warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers and how they may be radicalizing. These are the brothers who then perpetuated the Boston Marathon bombings. http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/06/fbi-knew-earlier-of-boston-bombing-suspect-166313.html . Two of the largest attacks in recent memory on US soil were both preceded with specific intelligence warnings to the government of the risk of a terrorist attack; intelligence that was ignored. More damningly, this was intelligence gathered through traditional means. If we lacked the competence to interpret this data properly, it is easily imagined that we lack the competence to mine the NSA program properly as well.

So where does this leave us? We have a multi-billion dollar spying program that is manned by the same incompetent people who failed to heed traditional warnings of previous attacks. A spying program that tramples on the world's privacy rights and freedoms which likely will not help us prevent the next attack (if the Boston Marathon bombings are predictive). I can't help but think that our government would have been a lot better off hiring more analysts to mine traditional intelligence than spending billions of dollars on a computer data warehouse. But that is the modern state of our technocratic government. It thinks it is a lot smarter, and a lot more competent, than it actually is. It is now up to the courts to interpret its constitutionality, and the voters to let their representatives know their displeasure.