NSA Part 3: Does data mining save lives? and should we let the government spy on us?

Does data mining save lives?

How many of our civil liberties are we willing to give up for increased security? I cannot answer this question. To answer it, would require a cost-benefit analysis which is impossible to perform, because I cannot predict the future and I do not have access to classified US documents.

Before I continue, I want to make something perfectly clear. I am not against the US government investigating and destroying foreign terrorist groups who pose a clear threat. I have no illusions over the threat of fundamentalist Islamic jihad terrorists groups. Terrorism is a real threat that puts American lives in direct danger. I am fully aware of the nightmare scenario of a backpack nuclear or chemical weapon set off in downtown Manhattan. There are very bad people in the world who want to murder innocent Americans and we should not wait for them to come to us, we should systematically eliminate them from the face of the earth.
A question that many people have asked, is if the NSA data mining is so powerful and worth the intrusions to our 4th amendment rights, than why did they fail to prevent the Boston Marathon attacks, the times square bomber, or the underwear bomber? Luckily two of the plots failed when the bombs did not go off. Aren’t these the exact types of terror plots that PRISM and Boundless Informant are designed to prevent? Why didn’t these advanced algorithms predict the plot in advance? In his interview, Snowden said that the meta data program has not prevented any significant terrorist plots. It is not clear to me that PRISM makes Americans any safer.

The director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, has addressed the usefulness of the NSA wiretapping programs.  Mueller claimed that the NSA data mining practices have successfully foiled terrorist plots over the years.  In the span of several days, the number of prevented terrorist events that he cited increased from "dozens" to "over 50".

Alexander, June 12th:  Its dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent.

Alexander, June 18th:  In recent years, together with other intelligence from other programs, have protected the US, and our allies over 50 times from terrorist events since 9/11.

To a critical ear, Mueller's comments invite many more questions.  Why does the number change from dozens to 50?  What exactly is a terrorist event?  How many of the over 50 attacks were going to happen in the US?  What allies are included in this tally?  What played a bigger role, PRISM or the other intelligence programs that don't violate the 4th amendment?  He even goes on to say that if we had these practices in 2001, we would have prevented 9/11 because one of the terrorists made a phone call from San Diego to Yemen.

These are not the words of a man who is interested to communicate the truth to the American public.  These are the carefully scripted words from a man who wants to say just enough to make a sound bite, to make it appear that he answered the question, without actually giving away any information.  This is a text book example of double speak.

This arguments assumes that the proper channels would have been informed and actions would have been taken.  There were already multiple intelligence channels warning of an attack on 9/11, and the Bush administration failed to act on these.  Bush received months of daily warnings that should have raised red flags.  He even received an intelligence memo titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” and only a few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.  Good information is only useful if we have good leaders.

Hypothetically, even if data mining was very effective at preventing terrorist attacks, the reaction is not in proportion to the amount of lives lost. On September 11th, 2001 the largest terrorist attack in the history of the United States occurred and 3,000 Americans were murdered. That same year 29,573 Americans were killed by guns, and 13,290 were killed in drunk driving accidents. From 1999-2000 the CDC says that 364,483 Americans were killed by guns, and 150,000 Americans were killed by drunk driving accidents. A 9/11 scale terrorist attack would have to happen every month for a year for it to match the number of gun related deaths that currently happen in a year. Putting tighter restrictions on soda sales and texting while driving would do more to save American lives than expanding the power and authority of the NSA. The US government is not taking an economical approach to saving preventable deaths.

An important distinction to make between these types of  deaths and terror groups is that your cell phone is not conspiring to kill you with weapons of mass destruction.  Whereas terrorist groups have said and attempted to obtain weapons of mass destruction for that very reason.  In December 1998, Osama bin Laden stated his desire to obtain WMDs:

"The acquisition of nuclear weapons in defense of Muslims is a religious duty."

A balance must be reached.  The only reason the US public has allowed the government to allow the Patriot Act is because of fear and ignorance.  The executive branch is playing on the irrational fears of its citizens to justify its massive expansion of power.  Flying is scary.  Terrorism is scary.  Terrorists hijacking airplanes and crashing them into buildings is very very scary and far removed from our normal experience.  Combine this fear with a complete lack of understanding of the basic principles behind the internet, and you get a population who is willing to give up their civil liberties for a small increase in safety.

If the US government only cared about saving American lives from preventable deaths, it could find much more effective way to invest its resources – especially without violating the 4th amendment. While intelligence programs like the NSA and FBI should continue to combat terrorism within the confines of the 4th amendment, the amount of lives that can be saved by preventing future terrorist attacks is very small compared to other preventable deaths caused by guns, drunk driving, distracted driving, and diet related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

Should we trust our government to spy on us?

The executive branch, congress, and FISA are the government bodies that have oversight over the NSA.  Keith Anderson and James Clapper both have flat out lied to congress, which effectively renders the oversight body that represents the people useless.  The president answers to no one, and FISA is a secret court.  Where does democracy enter into this picture?  There has to be some sort of functional checks and balances put in place.  The NSA cannot operate without functional oversight, and on secret interpretations of The Patriot Act.

Senator Alan Grayson's recent congressional remarks reflect my feelings:

We are not North Koreans.  We do not live in Nazi Germany.  We are Americans, and we are human beings, and we deserve to have our privacy respected.  I have no way to call my mother, except to employ the services of Verizon, AT&T, or some other phone company.  I am not going to string two cups between my house and her house 70 miles away.  That doesn't mean that its okay with me for the government, specifically the department of defense to be getting information about every phone call I make to her."

Benjamin Franklin said,

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety."

The NSA had plans to expand their power even before the terrorists attacks on 9/11. This is not a partisan issue, we have seen massive increase in surveillance powers by both the Bush and the Obama administrations. This is not an overreaction to 9/11, this is something that would have happened anyways, simply because it is something they wanted to do, and they were in a position to do it. If the events on 9/11 never happened, they would have found another excuse to pass the patriot act or a similar bill. They would not build a $2 billion facility in Utah to store yottabytes of information unless they planned on using it. If there is a will, there is a way, and a national intelligence agency that operates in secrecy with little oversight is certainly in a position to create a blanket surveillance system to mine data.

The question comes down to: Do you trust the government to perform blanket surveillance and to mine data? My answer is NO. I don't think the government is inherently bad, and I have full trust in the government to perform hundreds of other services. Blanket surveillance and data mining is not one of them. I have full faith in our intelligence programs to defend the United States from terrorist attacks while preserving the 4th amendment rights. However, I do not trust individuals in the government to mine my digital communications in good faith.

The NSA outsources 70% of their work to private contractors. Private citizens who are employed by these contractors, such as Edward Snowden, then have access to the NSA database. Snowden is a high school dropout who attended a community college. He is not a MIT super genius. Snowden was an average Joe. An average Joe who was hired to be a private contractor to be a systems administrator for the NSA, and who was given full authority to wiretap essentially anybody after only 3 months of employment. These are the types of people that the government trusts to have access to your most confidential data that is contained in their NSA database. Right now, there are thousands of other operators who have similar access privileges to the NSA database.

I am not trying to assassinate Snowden’s character. I am trying to illustrate the point that every day people who work in the NSA will have the power (legal or not) to essentially wiretap anybody at anytime. There is very little oversight or external checks to the NSA. They answer to the FISA court, which in 2011 approved 100% of the NSA’s 1,789 requests, to congress which are lied to, and to the President who is only a single man. Snowden said that while sitting at his desk, there were no technical limitations, only legal limitations, and that he had the ability to wiretap anyone – any US citizen, any federal judge, even the president if he had a personal email. How is this not a violation of the 4th amendment?

The US government is giving an unprecedented amount of power to private companies, and there are thousands of ways in which this power could be abused. How easy would it be for the operators to use private information about individuals to gain an advantage over their competitors? or to invent guilt from an innocent life to damage a political opponent or dissident? The operators will be given near immunity and are able to hide behind a cloak of secrecy with almost zero functional oversight. Do you trust these operators to not check up on their significant others, or even exes? What about the cute girl they see at the coffee shop? Or perhaps dig up dirt on an old romantic rival or a political opponent? It has not even been discussed if NSA operators can edit this information. In my opinion, the potential for abuse is too great, and the very existence of a central database is a threat to our democracy.

Kim Dotcom has reflected this view in his recent editorial in The Guardian:

Dotcom:  The point we should derive from Snowden’s revelations – a point originally expressed in March 2013 by William Binney, a former senior NSA crypto-mathematician – is that the NSA’s Utah Data Center will amount to a “turnkey” system that, in the wrong hands, could transform the country into a totalitarian state virtually overnight. Every person who values personal freedom, human rights and the rule of law must recoil against such a possibility, regardless of their political preference.

The NSA and FBI will continue to expand their powers, and in the process merge further with the private sector. what we know from the leaks is scary enough, what we don't know is even scarier. What information is contained in the 36 unpublished PRISM slides? What is contained in the rest of Senator Loretta Sanchez's proverbial iceberg? Microsoft recently announced that the Xbox One comes with a camera that is always on. It is designed to detect hand gestures and if somebody is in the room. At this point, it is not unreasonable to wonder what type of access the NSA will have to these cameras that are always on.

Almost every aspect of our modern lives is being merged with technology. Smart phones are ubiquitous, cheap, and are capable of amazing things that would seem like science fiction only 10 years ago. However, it is quickly becoming impossible to participate in modern society without losing your 4th amendment rights. Try applying for job without an internet account or at minimum leaving behind a digital footprint. This does not have to be true. I believe that we should be able to use the amazing new technology without giving up fundamental parts of our freedom and democracy.

I do not want to live in a surveillance state. I would rather live with the statistically insignificant chance of dying in a terrorist attack, or losing loved ones in a terrorist attack than to give up everyone's rights to privacy that the 4th amendment allows. I know with certainty that one day I am going to die. Every human who has ever existed is either dead or is going to die. We need to accept our own mortality, and break free of the fear that the threat of terrorism creates. The best recipe to maximize human flourishing starts with a society composed of free individuals whose lives are absent of fear. This is something we should strive for, and I believe that warrant-less blanket surveillance and data mining of American citizens by the US government violates the 4th amendment, and is a clear step in the wrong direction.