Are We Safer When We Give Up Our Liberties?

While Edward Snowden is learning every square inch of the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, the House of Representatives voted, albeit in a tight vote, that the National Security Agency can continue to spy on American citizens. While PRISM has been widely covered, there is another issue at stake, civil liberties.

The goal of PRISM and other comparable programs is to gain increasing amounts of data about ordinary citizens. However, while much data is collected, there are serious doubts about whether that data is useful. In an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza last week, professor Roman Kuźniar stated, “While the volume of information collected makes it harder to utilize it correctly for intelligence purposes, it can have a detrimental effect on human rights and democracy.”

On the Road to Big Brother

Let’s focus on the volume of intelligence collected by the NSA. Over the past decade or so, we have seen the establishment of numerous new agencies and government departments all over the world with the mission to maintain “security,” however that may be defined. Their basic mission is to collect and analyze data. Unfortunately, while collection technology has given these agencies the ability to collect a previously unheard of volume of intelligence, analyzing this information has not kept pace. Prior to 9/11, various American security agencies had various scraps of intelligence but were loath to share this information, and as a result, no one was able to connect the dots.

One of the major initiatives launched after those attacks was a coordination of various intelligence agencies’ efforts. The effects of this integration have not kept pace with the ever-increasing terabytes of information that come in. We are eavesdropped on, our actions are recorded on film, our phone calls logged and our emails read. Human Intelligence (HUMINT), the staple of American intelligence agencies a couple of decades ago, has given way to Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). Enormously powerful computers crunch all of the recorded information together, and our privacy is being constantly reduced.

Are we safer thanks to this massive electronic surveillance? Maybe. Is the scale of this surveillance justified, however? Doubtful. The argument that citizens have to give up some of their freedoms in exchange for security is patently false. This argument, however, has been successfully used to expand the American security apparatus with the help of the “threat level” system. President Bush and his neoconservative allies used the generated fear to create the Department of Homeland Security, pass the Patriot Act and start two wars — all of which would have been impossible under normal circumstances.

The president occupying the White House has changed and so have the circumstances, but it holds true that once government stakes out particular competencies, it is almost impossible to wrest them away. President Obama has gotten large bipartisan support for his security programs. As a senator, Obama was not a supporter of massive data collection. As we all know, Obama’s perspective changed dramatically once he moved to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. History is rife with examples like this.

Illusion of Security, Real Limits on Freedom

The debate about a need for security at the expense of freedom has been ongoing in politics, no matter the system of government. However, once freedoms are given away, they are often not given back, and this allows other freedoms to be eroded as well. Today, the American public seems to have given its tacit approval to the monitoring of its electronic data. But what is next? Will monitoring day-to-day activities also be allowed? What about limiting freedom to speak or disseminate information out of fear that someone might spread radical ideas?

Freedom has to be protected first and foremost. Would people feel safer if they were forbidden from speaking their minds? Do people feel safer knowing that the NSA has the power to read their emails, look at their Google history, see information posted on Facebook? The acceptance of this state of things as normal can have serious repercussions in the future. The silence of the so-called silent majority is a threat to American and Western democracy. Will our intelligence agencies, charged with keeping us safe, transform into something like the Iranian SAVAK (Organization of National Security and Information)? How many compromises of our rights are we from in such a scenario?

Intrusions on our privacy do not guarantee security. Even complete control cannot guarantee security, as history has shown. There will always be a Tsarnaev or Breivik waiting to strike without any prior warning. We can stop 99 attacks from happening, but that is no guarantee that the 100th will not succeed. By giving up our freedoms, we think we are gaining security. However, in the long run, we will have neither.