Americans are shifting their concerns about privacy rights. A new survey by Pew Research indicates that a slim but growing majority worry that courts are not protecting our privacy.
Ever since Edward Snowden leaked the story about the multi-millions of phone calls and Internet data secretly collected by National Security Agency, the public has had to consider the fine line between being protected by our government and being spied on.
The federal government is charging Snowden with espionage for these leaks, since its employees and contractors have signed a confidential secrecy agreement to hold all information secret, but people are even conflicted about whether he should be seen as a hero for being a whistleblower or a traitor.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows 53 percent of Americans believe Snowden should be charged for that as a crime; however, Americans in that poll place privacy protection above investigation of terrorist threats. The NSA claims its only reason to collect this huge list is to fight terrorists. But what if that is not altogether true, especially since much of the surveillance the NSA is engaged in is actually being done by contractors? After all, Snowden was working for one such contractor.
Right now, both Democrats and Republicans agree that NSA surveillance programs encroach on privacy rights. They are concerned about protecting our personal privacy, particularly since we trust our government to protect those privacy rights.
Trust in government is a big issue, when we learn that the IRS may be targeting groups it disagrees with for audits. Trust in government is also an issue when we learn that the military and the State Department can mislead us about international events.
The NSA surveillance activities domestically are limited by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
That makes it very clear that evidence is needed before searches can be done. Of course, at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, there were no telephones or wiretapping equipment, but the fundamental idea was that the people were not to be subject to searches of any kind, without probable cause and a warrant.
Domestic phone tapping poses threats to privacy. It is not always done under court order, and phone calls made to foreign citizens and governments outside the U.S. usually do not need one.
While we all want our government to protect us, we should question why government agencies collect information on all of us secretly. We need to be sure that government spying does not lead to the creation of a U.S. surveillance state in the future.
The government knows how to link phones or email addresses to determine who your friends are and what you or they say. Besides recording conversations, agency officials could listen to our calls, or engage in a political slippery slope, by spying on domestic political enemies. The problem is not that they are doing it now, but that they have the capability and the secrecy that can protect what they are doing. Big brother is right around the corner.
Private companies have been placing and storing “cookies” on people’s computers for a long time, in order to track user information. What is to stop our government agencies from doing this, and actually reading our private emails? Right now, the NSA has the capability to read our emails and hear our phone conversations. They may not do it, but they could.
We value being protected from terrorists. To have that protection, we have to put up with some things we don’t like, such as not being able to take our bottles of water through airport security. We need to decide just how much freedom and privacy we are willing to give up in the name of protection, when we don’t even know how effective it is.
The public has been growing more skeptical of the benefits of actions that threaten civil liberties and privacy protection. The NSA should not be permitted to get information from domestic communications on an ongoing, daily basis. It ought to have to get warrants for its spying activities, as the Fourth Amendment requires.
Legislators and the American people should change the direction of these privacy intrusions by NSA when Patriot Act provisions come up for renewal in 2015.
— Bernard Featherman is a business columnist for the Journal Tribune and former president of the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce.
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