I agree that technology changes the game because it's a multipler.
There's also an insidious quality to current surveillance in that it is not just pervasive over space, but over time. Once they have a database like that envisioned in PRISM and the Verizon records, it could be used to travel back through any person's intimate life looking for weak points, failures, emotional attachments, and transgressions, very useful in discrediting political opponents or inconvenient journalists, and very useful in quelling any revolts by citizens before they even begin. These are currently the methods that intelligence agencies use to turn assets and use them for their own ends on a small scale, but should we allow them the tools to use these techniques against an entire population simultaneously and retrospectively? What would the long-term outcome of that sort of power be?
I also do wonder why the methods they use should be secret in the first place? I completely understand the need for operational security on specific operations or details of methods, but if a huge broad program like this is done in a nation's name, surely they should know what is being done and approve or disapprove of it? I can't imagine there are any terrorists the professed target of these programs, who are not aware of widespread monitoring, so I find it hard to believe the top secret nature of the programs is about security so much as avoiding oversight. The avoidance of providing specific details to congress from former BAH executive Clapper is a good illustration of this - if congress can't get broad figures out of them, who are they accountable to?
So the combination of power multiplied by technology and the lack of accountability is the difference between this and tapping telephone lines on an individual basis.
This reminds me of the Wired article on the big NSA data center that is presumably recording every packet it can get its hands on for later analysis.[1]
This idea that the big coup here is that when they decide they want to target you, they already have a huge cache of intel on you. Like the Boston marathon bombers - at 9am they identify you, and at 9:15am they know everything there is to know about you since they've already collected it on everyone.
The scary thing is that I'm not even sure I find this scary. Google knows practically everything about me. Facebook is not far off. Even my ISP and my webhost could probably easily find damning things about me.
The government is constrained by law and policy. Snowden makes the outstanding point that policy can change. He calls it "turnkey tyranny". And he's right.
But what stops Google's next CEO or CTO from doing the same?
So in some real sense we're entering an era where our privacy rights at least are at risk from multiple different parties. So while I don't necessarily want the government to have access to treasure troves, I don't mind them being as well-armed as the civilian providers who hold my data.
And as long as we're able to keep those types of NSA systems used for good (just as we've managed to maintain proper controls on nukes), I'm not even sure I'd find it that horrible.
Similar schemes were used in Iraq to help finally stamp out IED cells. They put video cameras everywhere around IED problem areas (using ground-based cameras and drones) and they simply recorded everything.
When an IED detonated, they would simply play the tape back to figure out who set the trap, and where they came from. And where they came from before that. And they would piece together entire cells at the blink of an eye.
That's the kind of thing I'd like the NSA to be able to use against the future OBLs of the world. Could the NSA use it "against" me? Possibly, but the marginal increase in risk for me is near-zero, especially if we can strengthen the transparency around the program and strengthen some of the policies that protect us into the force of law.
Because after all, if I'm willing to assume the government might go after me in an extralegal fashion, I'm already fucked.
But what stops Google's next CEO or CTO from doing the same?
The law. There are many restrictions on how Google or Facebook use and distribute user data, and those laws are respected and enforced.
That's what Snowdon found so disturbing about the NSA - they no longer feel constrained by any law, and that they think their actions are a matter of policy because the laws governing their actions are so weak and ignorable (not the case for corporations). Even senators can't find out what they're really up to or talk about it to anyone else if they do.
Does the law really restrict what Google can do? Check their privacy policies again. Or those of Microsoft, or Sony. As a condition of using the service at all I'm required to choose to give up those privacy rights.
And either way, according to the EFF a portion of the FISA used to support PRISM and subpoenaing Verizon's records was ruled unconstitutional and here they are doing it anyways.
So certainly there should be legal safeguards, and those need to have the force of law (instead of policy) where those safeguards must survive a change of Administration. But let's not kid ourselves about what the law really prevents, either in practice or in that worst case that civil liberties advocates always mention.
I believe it does, yes. At least the law is public and you therefore know what the rules of the game are in the case of corporations and can hold them to it or point out infractions.
With the NSA there is no public law governing their activities (or at least no law that they seem to respect, as you note).
Comments
I agree that technology changes the game because it's a multipler.
There's also an insidious quality to current surveillance in that it is not just pervasive over space, but over time. Once they have a database like that envisioned in PRISM and the Verizon records, it could be used to travel back through any person's intimate life looking for weak points, failures, emotional attachments, and transgressions, very useful in discrediting political opponents or inconvenient journalists, and very useful in quelling any revolts by citizens before they even begin. These are currently the methods that intelligence agencies use to turn assets and use them for their own ends on a small scale, but should we allow them the tools to use these techniques against an entire population simultaneously and retrospectively? What would the long-term outcome of that sort of power be?
I also do wonder why the methods they use should be secret in the first place? I completely understand the need for operational security on specific operations or details of methods, but if a huge broad program like this is done in a nation's name, surely they should know what is being done and approve or disapprove of it? I can't imagine there are any terrorists the professed target of these programs, who are not aware of widespread monitoring, so I find it hard to believe the top secret nature of the programs is about security so much as avoiding oversight. The avoidance of providing specific details to congress from former BAH executive Clapper is a good illustration of this - if congress can't get broad figures out of them, who are they accountable to?
So the combination of power multiplied by technology and the lack of accountability is the difference between this and tapping telephone lines on an individual basis.
This reminds me of the Wired article on the big NSA data center that is presumably recording every packet it can get its hands on for later analysis.[1]
This idea that the big coup here is that when they decide they want to target you, they already have a huge cache of intel on you. Like the Boston marathon bombers - at 9am they identify you, and at 9:15am they know everything there is to know about you since they've already collected it on everyone.
[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
The scary thing is that I'm not even sure I find this scary. Google knows practically everything about me. Facebook is not far off. Even my ISP and my webhost could probably easily find damning things about me.
The government is constrained by law and policy. Snowden makes the outstanding point that policy can change. He calls it "turnkey tyranny". And he's right.
But what stops Google's next CEO or CTO from doing the same?
So in some real sense we're entering an era where our privacy rights at least are at risk from multiple different parties. So while I don't necessarily want the government to have access to treasure troves, I don't mind them being as well-armed as the civilian providers who hold my data.
And as long as we're able to keep those types of NSA systems used for good (just as we've managed to maintain proper controls on nukes), I'm not even sure I'd find it that horrible.
Similar schemes were used in Iraq to help finally stamp out IED cells. They put video cameras everywhere around IED problem areas (using ground-based cameras and drones) and they simply recorded everything.
When an IED detonated, they would simply play the tape back to figure out who set the trap, and where they came from. And where they came from before that. And they would piece together entire cells at the blink of an eye.
That's the kind of thing I'd like the NSA to be able to use against the future OBLs of the world. Could the NSA use it "against" me? Possibly, but the marginal increase in risk for me is near-zero, especially if we can strengthen the transparency around the program and strengthen some of the policies that protect us into the force of law.
Because after all, if I'm willing to assume the government might go after me in an extralegal fashion, I'm already fucked.
But what stops Google's next CEO or CTO from doing the same?
The law. There are many restrictions on how Google or Facebook use and distribute user data, and those laws are respected and enforced.
That's what Snowdon found so disturbing about the NSA - they no longer feel constrained by any law, and that they think their actions are a matter of policy because the laws governing their actions are so weak and ignorable (not the case for corporations). Even senators can't find out what they're really up to or talk about it to anyone else if they do.
Does the law really restrict what Google can do? Check their privacy policies again. Or those of Microsoft, or Sony. As a condition of using the service at all I'm required to choose to give up those privacy rights.
And either way, according to the EFF a portion of the FISA used to support PRISM and subpoenaing Verizon's records was ruled unconstitutional and here they are doing it anyways.
So certainly there should be legal safeguards, and those need to have the force of law (instead of policy) where those safeguards must survive a change of Administration. But let's not kid ourselves about what the law really prevents, either in practice or in that worst case that civil liberties advocates always mention.
Does the law really restrict what Google can do?
I believe it does, yes. At least the law is public and you therefore know what the rules of the game are in the case of corporations and can hold them to it or point out infractions.
With the NSA there is no public law governing their activities (or at least no law that they seem to respect, as you note).