Online Privacy Is Gone. Live With It
September 14, 2013
Feeling aggrieved over reports of widespread
government surveillance? Feeling guilty about
not feeling aggrieved? Relax. There's little you
can do about the revelations.
But here are seven steps to help adjusting to a
world in which the government has the ability to
collect and recall your every keystroke:
1) Admit that we are powerless to stop this new
technology. (We don't have to like it.)
2) Stop confusing capabilities with actions. The
U.S. government is capable of leveling Mount
Rushmore. That does not mean it has any
intention of launching drone attacks on South
Dakota, no matter what your local tea party
chapter says.
3) Recognize that this surveillance is key to
national security. Former FBI Director Robert
Mueller was not alone in warning that a
cyberthreat will "equal or even eclipse the
terrorist threat." Other governments and bad
people are racing for domination.
Whether we trust government, don't trust
government or simply want more oversight, this
is serious business. It's hard to count how many
bloggers have likened the sort of information
being culled today with the late FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover's collecting nudie photos of
political leaders in compromising situations.
Those were relatively innocent days.
4) Appreciate that we do have safeguards. When
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
berates the NSA for violating the rules, that's
an example of checks and balances in action.
China and Russia pass on such niceties as
surveillance courts, and they want to do exactly
what the National Security Agency does (if they
don't already).
5) Admit that commercial spying is a privacy
matter, as well. Retailers follow your cellphone
around the mall. Macy's knows how much time you
spent in the shoe department. Amazon.com knows
all about your interest in socialism and passion
for manga cartoons.
Of course, the telecom companies know whom you
called and for how long. If the issue is
privacy, what makes a business conglomerate more
honorable than the government?
6) Call out media sources hurling thunderbolts
at NSA spying while spying on you.
The New York Times recently ran a red-hot
editorial railing over the agency's
"inexhaustible appetite for delving into the
communications of Americans." On the right side
of the editorial's Web page was a list of
article links labeled "Recommended for You."
Now, how would The New York Times know what
Froma might want to read?
A search by Ghostery, a browser extension that
looks for third-party elements on Web pages,
identified no fewer than 11 invisible entities
tracking or analyzing the editorial's readers.
They included advertisers — DoubleClick, Google
AdSense, Moat — and three companies I never
heard of doing "analytics." Naturally, the
Facebook Connect widget was watching me, too.
The British newspaper The Guardian fancies
itself the last bulwark against privacy
oblivion. But over at the Daily Banter website,
Bob Cesca reported finding 92 such Web bugs
embedded on the Guardian page featuring a Glenn
Greenwald post on the NSA's alleged crimes.
7) In assessing government surveillance
activities, distinguish between a "who" and an
"it." A computer is an "it." The fact that it is
ruffling through all the metadata — phone
numbers, email addresses, Internet searches — or
even keeping the content of such communications
in a vault for five years should not overly
concern us.
When an actual human being takes a look, then
it's time for questions. When the system works
properly, the NSA still needs a warrant to look
at content.
I hope these seven steps help. We recently
learned that the NSA has cracked the encryption
tools protecting the privacy of Internet
communications. Two responses: 1) Now we know it
can be done. 2) Better us than them.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @fromaharrop. To
find out more about Froma Harrop and read
features by other Creators writers and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at
www.creators.com.
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