Who, when and where of e-mail and phone calls reveal too much.
By Jonathan Turley
Over the course of five years, President Obama has demanded much from him supporters from promising not to prosecute officials for torture to ordering warrantless surveillance to the quashing of dozens of public interestlawsuits seeking judicial review of his policies to the recent attack on the free press. He even claimed, under his "Kill List" policy, the right to kill any U.S. citizen that he believes to be a threat to
the United States. Yet, most Democrats stuck with Obama. Now, however,
Obama is demanding the final measure of devotion -- he is asking
supporters to abandon privacy principles in a move that will
fundamentally alter our society. Indeed, he and congressional allies
are trying to convince Americans that they can free themselves of fear
by simply redefining privacy in a new and surveillance friendly image.
At issue are massive surveillance programs through which the administration has seized data on every call made by every citizen. At the same time, data on millions of emails are being stored
showing addresses, subject lines, and attachments. The effort allows
citizens to be tracked in their associations and communications. In
other words, total transparency of citizens in a new fishbowl society.
In response to the outcry last week, Obama and others
assured citizens that they have nothing to fear from the government
collecting their calls and data. It was like a scene out of the movie The Matrix with politicians trying to convince people to give up their fears and learn to love living in the artificial environment
created for them. Of course, as with the prior notions of the free
press and the unilateral use of lethal force, people have to surrender
prior notions of privacy. Obama explained these are just modest intrusions
in the new concept of government-approved privacy. He insisted that so
long as the government did not read your emails or listen to your
calls, there is no danger to privacy. Likewise, Sen. Lindsay Graham
scoffed at the notion of any concern over privacy so long as you don't call a terrorist.
It
is true that the Supreme Court in 1979 ruled that there is less
protection afforded to phone numbers, which can be acquired under "pen registers." Yet, even accepting that ill-conceived decision in Smith v. Maryland,
the Court was addressing government seizure of numbers to individuals
who become material to investigations. The government previously used "national security letters"
to get such information. What the Obama administration has done is
effectively issue a national security letter for every citizens in
America. Recently, the Obama administration admitted to putting reporters under surveillance
and seizing such information in what is viewed by many as an extreme
attack on the principles of the free press. Many citizens remained
quiet as the administration called reporters potential criminals for
speaking with sources in the administration. Then, they learned the
government was gathering the same information from them and all other
citizens.
The new privacy model would protect only the content
of your emails and calls -- unless the government wants to read them.
Before we are lulled back to sleep by our leaders, it is worth noting
what you are about to give up.
The government has been secretly
collecting all of your contacts from your intimate friends to political
associations to doctors to product suppliers. Thus, if you are a
government employee seeking information on being a whistleblower, your
effort to reach lawyers or whistleblower groups will be seized.
Consider
who you have called or emailed in the last month. The government can
learn a great deal about you from just the people you call and subjects
of your emails. Your "metadata" can reveal peculiar tastes and
associations that you may consider hidden from all but your closest
friends – and now a few thousand government monitors. The government
will now know not only who you are calling but how long you are
speaking, how often you call people or groups, where you call from, and
even attachments like photos that you send. Ironically, the actual
content of your calls or emails are usually not needed to determine the
reason and subject of such communications. When you call an abortion
clinic repeatedly or a medical marijuana resource line, the likely
purpose of the call is self-evident. For citizens with unpopular
political or religious views, repeated calls or emails to certain
churches or groups indicate an obvious interest. From intimate affairs
to political associations, the purpose of most communications are
self-evident, particularly when they are placed within a mosaic of all
of your contacts and calls.
In his press conference, Obama
repeated the siren call of all authoritarian figures throughout history:
while these powers are great, our motives are benign. So there you
have it. The government is promising to better protect you if you just
surrender this last measure of privacy. Perhaps it is time. After all,
it was Benjamin Franklin who warned that "those who would give up
essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety."
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor
of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of
USA TODAY's board of contributors.
Related reading:
http://tinyurl.com/pqs6en6
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