The Edward Snowden episode that exposed NSA’s PRISM program provided compelling evidence that the communication technologies that people use nowadays are invasive by design and giant online databases are searchable by anyone in the absence of defined regulation.
In fact, data revolution threatens to strip citizens of much of their control over their personal information in virtual space. Privacy, in the traditional sense, exists no more.
With the sheer size of these data-gathering programs coming to light, the US government doled out reassurances that its security agencies work within the ambit of law and rejected any accusations of improper behaviour. At the same time, the government skated over serious questioning on mass surveillance, civil liberties or privacy.
Now it is clear that government intelligence agencies in collusion with technology companies and data service providers are indiscriminately collecting data and citizens are being tracked everywhere as they navigate electronically.
The NSA, on the pretext of providing security, has especially behaved like a total surveillance bureaucracy. It has spied on enemies known or suspected. It spied on friends, love interests, heads of states including allies, and above all its unsuspecting citizens. It spied in a dizzying number of ways, both ingenious and disingenuous.
Snowden’s revelations certainly eroded the faith that all spying by the US government is for the good. The awareness that spying has been done on US citizens carrying on their lives with no intent of damaging the country’s security has shattered the trust of US citizens on its government.
Ideally data revolution and intelligence gathering should have enabled more empowered citizens, better politicians and elimination of diabolic acts. Unfortunately, the reverse has taken place.
Citizens now are more nervous about the unknowns, of the dangers and crisis that could come when they expose their private lives in the Internet.
They are especially worried about the frightening possibility that in a digital age where their identities are increasingly getting defined by virtual activities and associations, the mechanism of surveillance could become a tool of oppression and social control.
Reportedly, the atmosphere of anxiety and mistrust has forced people to adopt ingenious privacy solutions. Even those who have nothing to hide are getting more concerned about their privacy.
According to a fall Pew report in the United States, “86 percent of people have taken steps online to remove or mask their digital footprints. Another study concluded that 64 percent of Internet users concerned about privacy have taken action to protect themselves in direct response to the NSA PRISM program” CNN reported.
While it is acknowledged that the government is interested in securing its borders and in that effect resorting to total surveillance. However, surveillance on such massive scale has infused the fear in the minds of citizens that it could create the potential for information falling into the wrong hands and misused.
It must be emphasized that there cannot be an end to surveillance activity, nor should there be, but there arises a need for better political controls, along with an injection of common sense.
With data-gathering by intelligence agencies now obvious, it’s about time for responsible governments and citizens to determine the limits that should be placed on the spy agencies and not let them become laws unto themselves.
Mindless, paranoid total surveillance endeavours must be replaced by transparent court-approved procedures that could minimize privacy invasions and regenerate the shattered trust of citizens in their governments.
In the context of shattered public trust following the surveillance expose, the US needs to restore accountability and unparalleled openness to public scrutiny and the rigorous oversight of the political process.
Any surveillance program needs to be measured against civil liberties and brought under the careful checks and balances of the Constitution. Any further rupture between public confidence and the US intelligence enterprise could be destructive.
*Sources linked within text.