James Thornton
Instructor Jacqui Asbury
ENG 100 B07
February 23, 2015
A Matter of Privacy
	In the summer of 2013, The Guardian newspaper and journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed a massive leak of classified intelligence information about programs run by the National Security Agency(NSA) from an anonymous source, later identified as American security contractor Eric Snowden. While employed by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, who has contracts with many government organizations including the NSA, Snowden managed to obtain vast amounts of classified documents showing that the NSA, who by their own mission statement is meant to “Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze, produce, and disseminate signals intelligence information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes to support national and departmental missions(Exec. Order 12333 Sect 1.12b)” was actually also actively spying on American citizens, which is well outside their authority. As more information began to come out, the evidence became more and more damning, from the secret courts that gave the NSA warrants to collect American citizen's phone records and text messages(around 200 million every day), to intercepting computer hardware mid transit and placing backdoors and spying related malware into them. If free speech is something you care about, then
	The Snowden revelations show that, though many Americans may not realize it, we stand on a slippery slope, sliding ever closer to an Orwellian surveillance state. And some people who do know about these practices say that they have no problem with them, saying “I haven’t done anything wrong, I have nothing to hide.” But who's definition of 'wrong' are they using?  A private citizens moral compass is very different than a government's laws, which can change overnight. As Glenn Greenwald said in a recent presentation “when you say, 'somebody who is doing bad things,' you probably mean things like plotting a terrorist attack or engaging in violent criminality, a much narrower conception of what people who wield power mean when they say, 'doing bad things.' For them, 'doing bad things' typically means doing something that poses meaningful challenges to the exercise of our own power.(Greenwald “Why privacy matters”)” If you disagree with something that the American government is doing, and want to voice your opinion(a principal that this country was founded on), this type of surveillance is intrinsically bad for you. What makes a surveillance state so bad is not being monitored at all times, it is the possibility of being monitored at all times, thus driving people to act like that they are being monitored at all times, suppressing their real thoughts and stifling free speech.
	The 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides people with protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, in response to misuse of British 'writs of assistance' that essentially granted British customs officers power to search citizens property without probable cause, and played a large part in stirring the tensions that led to the American revolution. This is still in effect today, with courts requiring law enforcement to get warrants based on evidence or probable cause. In the NSA's case, however, these proceedings are done in secret courts with little to no oversight under the guise of 'national security', but documents have shown that over 99% of the warrants applied for are granted(Perez, "Secret Court's Oversight Gets Scrutiny")- essentially turning the court process into nothing more than a 'check in the box' because of lack of tangible oversight by the government.
	Many politicians and people in government employ, most notably Senator Dianne Feinstein(D-CA) have defended this bulk surveillance of American citizens as a vital tool in the war on terror. But the proponents of these programs have failed to produce evidence of any instances where these data collection operations have actually proved themselves worth the effort. These politicians want to convince you that your privacy doesnt matter, that reasonable people who have nothing to fear have no reason to hind anything. Yet, if you dig just a little bit deeper, it seems like we don't go a day without a breaking story of how little governments and their officials value the privacy of their citizens, while ironically going to extreme lengths to protect their own; from the slain prosecutor in Argentina, Hillary Clinton not using a government email while she was in office, in order to keep her correspondence from being recorded(as is standard policy). It is clear that the policy-makers value their own privacy much more than they value yours.
	I don’t think that anyone will tell you that gathering electronic intelligence is not an important part of our plan national security. But we need to be cautious, and really think about how much power we want our government to have. Giving your rights away is easy, all you have to do is nothing. Taking them back, however, is a whole different story. America has historically been a bastion of freedom because of the people who fought to protect the rights that we feel are inherent to all human beings, and it is up to us to continue to do so.

Work Cited
Exec. Order No. 12333, 3 C.F.R. December 4 1981. Print.
Greenwald, Glenn. “Why privacy matters.” TEDGlobal 2014. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. October 7, 2014. Web.
Perez, Evan "Secret Court's Oversight Gets Scrutiny". The Wall Street Journal. June 9, 2013. Print.