This week’s revelations of widespread data gathering by the
federal government have shocked many Americans.
Coming on the heels of the recent scandals about Justice Department spying
on reporters and IRS agents harassing political opponents, the new information
about America’s intelligence gathering activities have drawn widespread
opposition and indignation. There are
important differences between the activities of the National Security Agency
and the other scandals, however.
On Wednesday, leaked court documents demanding that Verizon
turn over phone records to the federal government sparked an uproar over the
NSA’s phone surveillance program. On
Friday, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, released more
details about the program. Reported by
the
Associated
Press, Clapper noted the program, which presumably includes other companies
as well as Verizon, is reviewed every 90 days and the government is prohibited
from indiscriminately examining the records of Americans. The information obtained by the NSA does not
contain the content of the calls, but only “metadata” such as the phone numbers
involved, time, location, and duration of the call.
On Friday, the
Washington
Post also published leaked reports of PRISM, a secret program that analyzes
internet traffic in a manner similar to the NSA’s examination of phone
records. According to the leaked
documents, “
e-mail, chat, videos, photos, stored data,
VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications of target
activity...log-ins, etc., online social networking details” were
available from major internet companies.
A
CNET
analysis of the PRISM documents indicates that it is theoretically possible
that the government has been reading private emails of American citizens.
Even
though the amount of information collected by the NSA and PRISM is staggering,
there is so far no evidence that it has been used to spy on Americans or
intrude on their privacy. Instead, it
seems that the federal government has been engaged in a process called “
data
mining.” Data mining is the use of
computer programs to discover hidden patterns in data. Private companies frequently use data mining to
target advertisements to likely customers.
Cookies on websites and tracking software collect information about internet
users, which is then sold to internet advertisers. Computer programs can even “read” your emails
to target ads to your screen. Similar
programs might be used to block suspicious credit card transactions based on
the user’s past history.
While
the NSA is not interested in selling anything to Americans, it is presumably interested
in suspicious contacts between the United States and known terrorists in other
countries. On Thursday, Mike Rogers (R-Mich.),
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told
Politico
that “
Within the last few
years, this program was used to stop a terrorist attack in the United States.” Rogers added, “It is a very valuable thing. It is legal.”
Rogers appears to be correct. Both programs appear to be legal if they were
implemented properly. In 1979, the
Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Maryland
that telephone users have no expectation of privacy with regard to telephone
numbers dialed because telephone companies regularly track such
information. Likewise, CNET
points out that the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 2008 and the Protect America Act
of 2007 permit intelligence gathering of internet data. The Protect America Act is limited to people “reasonably believed to be located outside
of the United States” (Section 105A) and the Section 702 of the FISA Act
clarifies that U.S. citizens or people within the United States cannot be
targeted.
On
Friday, President Obama defended the NSA programs, saying, “
Nobody is listening to your telephone
calls.” In a PBS
transcript, Obama continued, “By sifting through this so-called
metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might
engage in terrorism. Now, with respect to the Internet and e-mails, this
doesn't apply to U.S. citizens, and it doesn't apply to people living in the
United States.”
In a separate speech on Friday, transcribed by NBC
Bay Area, Obama noted that “ if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also
don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges to make sure that we’re
abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to
have some problems here.”
The other scandals
of the Obama Administration have worked to diminish public trust in
government, however. Even before the
recent scandals, Pew
showed public trust in government at all-time low levels. The reports of systematic abuses of power
against the president’s political opponents (summary on Examiner.com)
and spying
on reporters have only heightened the crisis of confidence in the federal
government. A June 5 Rasmussen
poll showed that an unprecedented 56 percent of Americans view the federal
government as a threat to individual rights.
Even normally trusted agencies such as the
FBI have been implicated in the Obama Administration’s apparent suppression
of conservative groups. Even the New
York Times said Thursday that “The
administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving
the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very
likely abuse it.”
Unlike the data mining by the NSA, the
allegations against Obama Administration in the IRS and DOJ media spying
scandals include the specific targeting of American citizens. The IRS
has admitted that it specifically targeted conservative groups and an
investigation by McClatchy
News confirmed that no liberal or nonpartisan groups received unfair
treatment. Several IRS employees have
said that their scrutiny and harassment of conservative groups was directed by
IRS officials in Washington according to the Associated
Press. Likewise, Attorney General
Holder personally approved the warrant for surveillance of Fox News reporter
James Rosen according to MSNBC. Unlike the NSA surveillance, which was
apparently a legitimate program directed at foreign terrorists, the IRS and
Justice Department programs were specifically directed at Americans and apparently
had political motives.
The
NSA’s surveillance programs are not new.
They have been public knowledge since 2005 when the
New
York Times published an account of the program. However, the programs are likely viewed with
more concern by many Americans due to the recent reports of spying and abuses
of power against American citizens. If
the IRS and DOJ could illegally target Americans for political purposes, many
are concerned that NSA data might be used for the same reason.
