Global Surveillance: The Public Must Fight for its Right to Privacy

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/public-must-fight-against-prism-and-tempora-surveillance-a-907495.html



The British-American surveillance program Tempora marks a historic turning point. Unnoticed by the public, intelligence agencies have pursued total surveillance. Governments have deliberately concealed from the public the extent to which we are being watched.

Global Surveillance: The Public Must Fight for its Right to Privacy
A Commentary by Christian Stöcker

The term, "information superhighway" has always been insufficient to describe the Internet. In reality, the Web is a global communication space containing the private information of a large part of the population of every developed country. If someone were able to train an all-seeing eye onto the Internet, the blackmail potential would be almost limitless.

It is precisely this all-seeing eye that the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the American National Security Agency (NSA) have developed under the name Tempora. An appropriate real-world metaphor for the program might be something like this: In every room of every house and every apartment, cameras and microphones are installed, every letter is opened and copied, every telephone tapped. Everything that happens is recorded and can be accessed as needed.

It sounds preposterous, but it is frighteningly close to the reality that was unveiled by the Guardian on Friday. Together, the GCHQ and NSA monitor Internet traffic by tapping directly into the data stream sent through fiber-optic cables. They are able to copy and cache this data, to be sifted through later as needed.

Those behind this disgraceful program have not even bothered to deny what they are up to. The British spy agency has said it will not be commenting on the program -- but said that whavever they do is in the service of the fight against terrorism and subject to strict legal controls. The NSA has been making this same argument since the Prism program was unveiled earlier this month. What we're doing, they say, is for a good cause. It's all regulated, and we're only looking at the information collected when we deem it necessary.

[alc]

1. "blackmail potential" isn't about you and me (mostly)

Sure we could be caught at something but most of us aren't doing anything that bad and/or aren't significant enough to watch by this system.

But we are all affected by the acts of many other people. Congressmen. Union leaders. CEOs. etc. Unfortunately they aren't all "good guys" in their private life. Weiner didn't do anything that bad but had to leave when it became public. Still better we found out and he left rather than we didn't find out and he started changing his votes.

Processes and warrants aren't going to stop the data from being misused. It's there and it will eventually be accessed for the wrong reasons. The NSA may need a vote or prefer a FISA judge or just need to get rid of a congressman. Or Rove may get a mole. Or someone may just decide to make public just how sleazy our representatives are in public life.

If you think the warrant requirements are enough, image if the Congress was going to vote next week to shut down the NSA. And it looks like they have enough votes. Do you think the NSA will leave it normal backroom debate and armtwisting and favor-swapping? Or do you think there's even a little chance they may access their databases to find a little addition armtwisting material.

[bemildred]

2. It is preposterous, it doesn't just sound preposterous. nt