Private Lives

Over the last two weeks we've all been witnessing a full-out, big-ass, five alarm, National freak out! The cause of this new wave of hysteria was the revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on the activities of Americans by examining our phone records and our Internet use. It started small with the news that Verizon Wireless was giving the government phone records under a warrant from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. Within a few days the revelations included all the phone companies, then all the Internet search engine companies and social network sites. Finally, we knew that just about any digital footprint made by anyone was available to the NSA. This includes all phone calls, text messages, e-mails, Internet sites visited, and log-ons- In other words, the whole enchilada.

These revelations came into the public eye because a guy who worked for the government, with an NSA contracted company leaked the story to a British News agency. The leaker himself was one of the people who was doing the data gathering and apparently felt it was wrong. There’s a lot of hoopla about this guy in political circles and on the talk-radio waves. Is he a criminal or a hero? Should we extradite him and put in prison, or throw a parade. Frankly, I don’t care. The story isn’t about him. The story is about us.

I’m having a very hard time getting excited about these revelations. There is nothing in this story that strikes me as new. We have known forever that the government uses private information about our lives for its own purposes, and always has. Every technological advance in communications or information sharing has given rise to the opportunity to collect information secretly. The U.S. Postal Services was famous for this activity, as was the Internal Revenue Service. In the 70’s the NSA was intercepting telegrams illegally. J. Edgar Hoover became the most powerful man in the country because of the information he gathered . Now the digital age has created electronic systems that make it even easier to collect more information and collect it faster than ever before, with unlimited storage capacity.   

I admit there are differences now in the collection and use of private information than in years past. In the last 15 years two significant cultural events occurred simultaneously that put us square in the middle of this controversy today. The first event was the explosion of personal communications and data systems, and devices available to so many people. Who could have imagined, even one generation ago, that nearly all of us would have a device in our pocket that not only permits us to engage in global communication through the airwaves with no wired connection- but could also gives us instant access to nearly all the collected information known to man? We all have our “smart phones” and we love them. For many of us our whole lives on that phone. They contain our contact lists of everybody we know, we get e-mail, we have a list of every call we make or get, and we access the Internet with them. Of course, one feature of using the new cell phones is that the cell phone company has the same information about you that you have about you- and we knew this when we signed up.

The second great cultural event was the terrorist attack on 9-11-01. Our mainland had never been attacked in that fashion before in our history. Thousands dead within minutes, massive destruction and intense feelings of vulnerability- all from an unseen enemy. In the days following we were so frightened that another attack could come that there was some very "out-there" crazy-talk coming from the government. The fact that is was an act of terrorism and not a traditional military attack played havoc with our collective psyche. As a result we began grasping at straws to explain how this could happen and how we could prevent it from happening again. Because this attack came from a network of individuals and not a standing army of invaders we concluded the answer to preventing another attack should be  focused on information gathering. In fact, we had had plenty of information to warn us about 9-11, but the catch phrase used as an excuse for not stopping it was, “we didn’t connect the dots”. Remember that?

So, here are these two huge cultural events: the expansion of information and communications technology; and the national consensus that we needed to collect more of it to protect ourselves. Congress, in its wisdom, looks at these two phenomenon and gives us the Patriot Act. Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress, so passage of this law was not difficult, especially with Dick Cheney running around espousing his ridiculous “1% Doctrine”- pure fear mongering. Many Democrats even signed on because Democrats are always afraid to look “soft” on terror. Some Democrats voiced objections fearing that this would expand the government’s “legal” authority to violate the Constitutional rights of citizens. Nonetheless we were so stunned and fearful after 9-11 Congress willingly allowed government to violate our privacy in the most unprecedented ways in our history. Everything we’re talking about today stems from the passage of the Patriot Act. I know there are those who were instrumental in passing the original Patriot act who now claim it wasn’t intended for domestic surveillance, but it did actually allow it.

I must admit that I don’t know the right answers about the extent of government surveillance of its citizens. I just don’t know what is right on this issue. Given the nature of the threats against us and the current state of the technology, I sometimes think it is necessary and useful. At the same time, knowing that I have no privacy in the digital world we all live in seems very wrong. There are two things about the current controversy that strike me though. The first is that this is more of a political issue than it should be. There are those who want to blame President Obama for this excessive surveillance. It is another example of his opponents using any issue (even one they created) to denigrate him. In fact, any President living in the time of these cultural events would do the same thing. Those who are casting stones at him now are the same politicians who told us not to worry about the Patriot Act. Do you remember them telling us, “if you aren’t doing anything wrong- what do you have to hide?” It was a childish thing to say then- and their criticism of Obama on this issue is a hypocritical thing to say now. I can only imagine what his opponents would say if there was another attack. He would be blamed for the attack because he didn’t spy on us enough. (You know, connecting the dots) And let’s face facts, in order to catch foreign threats through digital surveillance you must include domestic data sources- it is a global issue. So this is not a partisan issue, it is not an Obama issue- it is an issue for all of us to decide based on what kind of country we want to be. The more freedom we have as a people the more we risk our security. That is the nature of an open, free society- and the nature of security. But that is the trade-off we grapple with.

The other issue in today’s debate is our evolving notions about our privacy- our own private lives. We have embraced a culture that reveres the Information Age. We relish in our digital networking and manage many of our relationships via all the tools of today’s technologies. (If you are reading this- you are engaged in it now. And a data base somewhere is recording that you are doing it!)  The communications and data technologies we use encompass nearly every aspect of our lives. For example, I might text message my family members about a family gathering we’re planning, or communicate with them via e-mail. That’s typical these days.  In doing so I have made a digital trail telling Verizon (or anyone they give the information to) where I’ll be, when I’ll be there, and who I will be with-plus I divulged the same information about every member of my family. Then, there’s Facebook and many other social networking sites. Our embrace of the technology has created an entirely new social reality. We post- we tweet- we are LinkedIn and we Instagram our lives to the world. We do credit applications on-line and buy millions of products and services over the Internet. We book our trips and go to college on our computers. We pay for things with debit and credit cards that are all transmitted via computers. Our banking records exist in cyberspace. And we do all these things because they make our lives easier, and in many ways more enjoyable. But to assume that we have any privacy is both naïve and ludicrous. We willingly have given up almost every bit of information about ourselves- and that information is bought and sold every day. Corporations have been “mining” this information for years and using it to make billions of dollars.

I’m somewhat amused at the level of indignity being expressed over these revelations because we have all given up our privacy a long time ago. We just don’t like it when “the Government” gets it. Somehow we have developed another cultural peculiarity: We claim to have the greatest country in the history of mankind-but we constantly promote fear and loathing of the same government that created it. That never made sense to me. So as I struggle with the issue of privacy and search for answers, I’m not focused on laying blame on one Party or one leader (the blame lies with all of us)- I’m focused on having a real conversation about us as a people and how we want to handle a future full of new technologies and ethical challenges that confront us. The issue of privacy (and our private lives) may be the central human rights issue of the future. I hope we have the wisdom to resolve it with all the human dignity we can muster.

Thanks for looking in.