By: Patrick Foley
In June of 2013, Edward Snowden leaked classified information regarding the National Security Agency’s methods of bulk data collection to the mainstream media. This degree of data collection could only happen because of the Patriot Act which was passed in the wake of the September 11th attack. The most sensational section of the Patriot Act, Section 215, allows FBI officials to require the production of “any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.” The United States Federal Government has argued since the revelation of the practice that the data of every American is necessary in order to provide the population with the highest security. Most Americans consider the collection of meta-data regarding phone calls through this legislation to be the biggest issue in the surveillance debate but, in reality, this practice is a small fraction of what Section 215 allows for and the entire Patriot Act describes only a small fraction of what the NSA is allowed to do.
One of these methods of data collection was used by the government under the Patriot Act and is still being used after the Freedom Act essentially replaced the Patriot Act. This NSA program titled “PRISM” allows the government to “deputize” organizations like Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to release information regarding their users. The NSA, through PRISM, has access to things like Google search histories, Gmail messages, and the content of Facebook chats.
The government surveillance debate has been in the news recently because the Patriot Act expired on Monday (6/1/15) and the Freedom Act passed in the senate earlier today (6/2/15). The biggest difference between this new legislation and the Patriot Act is that the NSA can only ask companies for data on a specific entity such as a person, account or device. Additionally, the Freedom Act requires the intelligence community to be more transparent about how much data it collects, and allows private companies to be more open about how often they turn over information to the United States Federal Government.
The debate around something that affects our lives so fundamentally has been shockingly under-reported. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that 46% of Americans describe themselves as not very concerned or not at all concerned with NSA meta-data gathering and a new CNN/ORC poll has found that 61% of Americans think the Patriot Act should be renewed. These results seem incongruous with the outrage that immediately followed Snowden’s revelation and that raises the concern that some portion of Americans involved in that poll may not have completely understood what government surveillance involves as described in the Patriot Act and in general.
While you can argue on either side of the security/privacy debate, neither freedom nor security is improved by allowing the opinions of the Patriot Act’s author Congressman Sensenbrenner and a limited number of other politicians and concerned citizens to make these choices for everyone. This debate is more complex than supporting or condemning a bill. In this debate we need to take into account all of the kinds of information gathered by the government, the way that it is gathered, and the ways that the information is used to keep people safe.
This issue becomes a debate between absolute security and absolute freedom and almost every American falls somewhere in between those two extremes. We all have a need for privacy and a need for safety. The only people that can truly understand and advocate for the specific balance that you want is you. We as a population are not obligated to fight for or against government surveillance, but if privacy or security is a concern to you, then the very least we need to understand is just how much private information we sacrifice for exactly how much security.