Privacy is not a concern for citizens in totalitarian states where autocrats or the ruling group want to be all knowing. Those in power try to eliminate private thoughts or communications, their goal being to prevent their overthrow by the people or other groups in opposition. Invasion of citizens’ privacy by government surveillance and various high tech corporations in democratic nations has only become a matter of general interest in the last few years. In fact, it was really brought to public attention with the release of classified information from the NSA (National Security Agency) by Edward Snowden when he defected to Hong Kong and then Russia in June of 2013. It became known then that the American government through the NSA had been collecting vast reams of data via phone calls and the Internet from Americans and citizens of other countries to trace any possible terrorist activities. The information was never actually scrutinized for the overwhelming majority of individuals unless an algorithm suggested possible terrorist ties, travel or phone calls to places where terrorists were located. Never-the-less, there was an uproar in foreign democracies as well as the U.S. over the loss of privacy, as it was believed the American government might be able to use some of the data in nefarious ways.
Particularly embarrassing was the revelation that the United States and British intelligence agencies had been listening in on the phone calls of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, an American ally. Blowback also occurred when members of Congress learned that the CIA and NSA had been spying on them. The ability of these agencies to monitor virtually anyone in the world who uses electronic equipment (phones, cell phones, computers) means that they can track both citizens and non-citizens alike and overhear their communications, if some intelligence analyst feels they might pose a risk to the U.S. However, non-terroristic criminal activities could also be uncovered in the screening that is done, without warrants for surveillance of these individuals.Extra-marital liaisons and other private matters might be exposed as well while monitoring was going on if NSA personnel chose to listen in.
In addition to the government, many high-tech firms have also been collecting personal data on people who use their services, including Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, and so forth. The interest of these companies is generally to target advertising by their clients or themselves to the likes and dislikes of their customers, making sales of various products more likely with these personal profiles. However, the data to enhance marketing is usually collected without gaining the approval of those people who are being monitored, sometimes getting the okay through Internet documents that are not well understood by the recipients. Many individuals feel this is an invasion of their privacy. Most do not want to be inundated with advertisements on line or through the mail that they did not request and there are costs and time wasted associated with this. It also increases the amount of spam one receives, which can be quite an annoyance. Facebook under pressure has promised to cut down on its data mining research and to insure more privacy for those who post, but has not been specific in what it intends to change.
New encryption techniques are currently being utilized by some high tech firms to guarantee to their users that their communications will not be seen by the government to extract information about them. But the intelligence agencies are now complaining that this will make it harder for them to track terrorists and keep the country safe. However, it is probably a matter of time before the spy agencies find ways to crack the encryption codes and obtain the data they want.
To insure privacy for citizens in the future, any collection of information about individuals by American intelligence agencies should be approved by the court system, possibly a special court like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which was established by Congress in 1978. High tech companies should also simplify the notifications to their users that their data is being collected, so they realize what is being done and allowing them to opt out more easily if this is their desire. In this new world, however, individual privacy will be difficult to maintain unless people make a concerted effort to keep the details of their lives out of government and corporate hands.
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020