Update: New Information on NSA Surveillance Scandal

Last week I wrote about the breaking story that the NSA has been monitoring phone records after obtaining a court order that allowed them to collect data from Verizon Wireless.  As I noted, feelings on the issue are split.  An editorial from the New York Times claimed that the Obama administration had “lost all credibility on the issue,” and that the government was clearly abusing its power.  The Washington Post took a similar stance, but called for more information on the matter before the public jumped to conclusions.  Over the weekend, more information came to light that might help us paint a better picture of what exactly the NSA’s telephone surveillance program entailed.

Most of the new information about the NSA’s PRISM program came from the whistleblower himself, Edward Snowden, and ex-CIA employee.  Snowden is currently living in Hong Kong to avoid prosecution by the federal government for leaking the story.  He provided The Guardian, the British news agency that first broke the story, with a 12-minute video interview that you can watch here.  In the interview, Snowden claimed to have had the authority to spy on any American citizen, including the President.  He claimed to have leaked the information because of some of the same concerns I voiced last week.  In particular, he said that he did not want to live in a society that secretly monitors its citizens, especially those who have done nothing wrong.

So basically what we have learned is that between the CIA and NSA, the federal government had virtually unlimited power to monitor U.S. citizens, even those in the most powerful positions.  It would appear that the government needed no probable cause of any kind to place surveillance on these people.  I think it’s safe to say that most people’s initial reaction to any instance of government surveillance is outrage.  As I said before, we are a freedom- and privacy-loving people.  But it’s also important to look at all perspectives before jumping to conclusions.

First things first, the government is not in an enviable position.  Charged with protecting over 300 million citizens, agencies like the NSA and CIA have a monumental task in detecting and thwarting terrorist attacks against the United States.  Incidents like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon attacks showed just how susceptible we can be to terrorism without implementing a proactive approach.  Because of this, there seems to be a general consensus that the government must have some type of surveillance and intelligence gathering programs.  The trouble is in deciding just how extensive and intrusive these programs should be.  If the government backs off on its surveillance programs and an attack occurs, the public will be outraged and ask why more wasn’t done to protect them.  On the other hand, in situations like this where the government is perceived as having gone too far, the public is also outraged.  The happy medium, if it exists at all, would be extremely difficult to find.  So if the public is going to be outraged regardless of which stance the government takes, it makes sense to some extent that the government would take a proactive stance that might actually prevent attacks and prevent American deaths.

Second, we have to look at what the government was searching for in the records acquired from Verizon.  So far, it appears that the NSA was not listening to individual phone calls or audio recordings.  From what we know thus far the NSA was simply analyzing data for patterns that might uncover terrorist activity within the U.S., which most would consider a legitimate government concern.  Nothing so far points to the government using the collected data for censorship purposes, or anything unrelated to preventing terrorism for that matter.

Having said that, I am not trying to convince anybody that the government did the right thing.  Determining what the right thing even is in this situation is an extremely difficult task, and there probably isn’t a concrete answer.  There is certainly a chance that the government may abuse its power any time it monitors its citizens, but we still don’t have all the facts to make a determination on whether or not they were.  And, especially at a time when confidence in our government is so low, public outcry against the NSA is understandable and maybe warranted.  Even so, when we look at this situation we have to keep it in perspective.  One of the government’s many jobs, and more specifically the NSA’s job, it to protect the public from terrorist attacks, and so far it looks like that is what the PRISM program is intended to do.  More facts are sure to come to light in the following days and weeks, and we might want to reserve judgment until then.

Chris Whitten, Research Fellow
Center for Policy and Research

NSA Phone Surveillance Scandal Sparks Different Reactions

On Wednesday, The Guardian released a story detailing how the National Security Agency obtained a secret court order compelling telephone giant Verizon Wireless to hand over phone records detailing all domestic calls made by its customers.  Specifically, the order, signed by a federal judge on April 25^th, gave the NSA unlimited authority to collect phone numbers, location data, time and duration of calls, and other unique identifying data until July 19^th.  As the article points out, the court order was unusual in that it targeted such a wide range of people.  Normally, this type of court order would be limited to an individual or a small group of people.

Now, I would venture to say that when most Americans first heard about this story, they envisioned a government agent sitting in a van with headphones on, listening to their individual phone calls.  However, as a follow-up article by The Washington Post explains, this is probably not the case.  Information obtained regarding the court order made no actual mention of audio recordings.  Although it is not out of the question that the NSA may have other programs aimed at obtaining audio files, they would not be able to acquire them under this order.  It appears that the NSA is only seeking paper and electronic records at this point.

But why would the NSA want these phone records?  Although the reasoning behind the court order is largely unknown at this point, the White House responded quickly by claiming that this was an anti-terrorism move.  Particularly, the NSA is probably seeking out patterns in the records that could reveal possible terrorist plots against the United States.  Even if this is the case, the methods the NSA uses to find these patterns have not been proven and have actually been questioned by experts in recent years.

The story has already sparked a great deal of outrage among the American public.  We have a high expectation of privacy and tend to think that we are immune to this type of surveillance, especially when it has not been proven to be effective.  But since specific details are still being withheld, we can’t be sure whether the NSA’s program is actually constitutional.  Putting that aside, there are a few different ways to look at the situation.  Like I said before, we tend to place a high value on privacy in the U.S.  The idea that the government can monitor our phone calls without notice of permission is unsettling to most, and understandably so.  Even if the government is not actively listening to our phone calls, it’s hard to say what else they ARE monitoring.  Prior to the enactment of the Patriot Act, this kind of surveillance would have been unthinkable.

On the other hand, some Americans are ok with the idea of the government monitoring private phone calls.  The program even received some support in Congress.  Senator Lindsey Graham defended the NSA’s program on Fox News, stating that it was a necessary step toward thwarting “homegrown terrorism.”  There are undoubtedly some Americans who agree and are ok with trading some amount of privacy for increased national security.  In the post-9/11 era, this is also understandable.  After all, what does the average American have to worry about if they have nothing to hide?  It’s not like the government has released the actual records to the public.  This might be true, and that argument might hold water, but the fact is that we don’t know where it stops.  Just to reiterate, specifics regarding the program are still unknown, and the NSA may have place self-imposed limitations on their surveillance, but we just won’t know until more details are released.  That’s the part that makes so many Americans uneasy.

Until then, we again have to ask ourselves a question that been asked over and over for the past decade:  What amount of privacy and liberty are we willing to give up in the name of national security?

Chris Whitten, Research Fellow
Center for Policy and Research