The recent stories from the UK's Guardian newspaper and The Washington Post about the NSA's massive intelligence gathering program known as Prism has sent shock-waves around the world. Congress is morphing into a collection of very strange bedfellows, with neo-conservatives and staunch progressives joining forces to defend the program. Privacy advocates and liberal groups are demanding transparency, and the libertarian wing of the GOP is demanding that the NSA cease such programs.
I personally think that the reaction to these revelations is so ridiculously overblown, it deserves ridicule. OF COURSE the NSA is monitoring us. OF COURSE our emails, web searches, chats, phone calls and other communications are being looked at. This isn't news. This isn't even new. Every 5 years or so, someone in the intelligence community leaks something to a reporter, it gets published, and the whole country rants and raves about 'Big Brother.'
So what?
The idea of privacy is almost a fallacy in the digital age. We share intimate details about our lives on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pintrest. We voluntarily let Google, Apple, and Yahoo look at our web browsing history so they can tailor ads and services to our specific interests. We allow Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint to know our exact location at all times via our smartphones, just in case we need to 'check in' on Foursquare.
We, the people, relinquished our digital privacy by embracing social media. And, since this is how a vast majority of us communicate, the NSA is going to monitor those communications. As to weather or not that is ethical, or constitutional, that's a different argument. For now, lets just all recognize that we put this information out there freely. That the NSA and other intelligence agencies are monitoring it is simply the reality, and anyone who doesn't realize that has been living under a rock.
There are serious questions about constitutionality, ethics, and yes, even privacy, that go along with this debate. Those are the issues we SHOULD be focusing on, instead of wasting time pontificating about an invasion of privacy. I'm more concerned about how the NSA is handling this information. Are there safeguards in place as to how the information is dealt with? How long is the information kept? Can a disgruntled NSA employee access his ex-girlfriend's information and use it in a nefarious way?
The Guardian and The Washington Post do what news agencies are supposed to do - report the news. However, it appears that we, the people, have lost sight of what this news is telling us. A study by Carnegie-Mellon University found that in 2010, the average American was being captured by some sort of video surveillance for nearly 7 hours each day. We are being monitored - weather by private enterprise or government agency - someone is watching us.
Once we recognize that, we can ask the questions I think we should be asking: What are we doing with all of the data being collected, and is all of this monitoring actually keeping us safe?
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