With reports in the last few
weeks of the NSA breaching the privacy of millions of Americans as well as the
revelation of the Prism program that entailed privacy breaches with the help of
a host of tech and internet companies, there has been much discussion about the
growth of executive power, the failure of the legislature and the judiciary but
not much about what people actually think as it may provide a shock for those
among us who favour their right to privacy over security interests.
According to poll published by
Pew Research Center, 56% of Americans support the NSA’s monitoring of phone
records in the interest of “investigat(ing) terrorism”[1].While
there is a “substantial minority” of 41% who would beg to differ, 62% favour
the government pursuing threats “even if that intrudes on personal privacy”[2].
It appears that number doesn’t
change much when political affiliations are concerned as an incredible 69% of Democrats
favour the government threats even at the expense of “personal privacy”, a
point that republicans (62%) and independents (59%) also concur with[3].
This trend of the public support
of the government investigating threats at the expense of their privacy is not exclusive
to the US as the British public also are prepared to have their rights breached
in the interest of stifling security threats. According to a poll published by
YouGov, only 19% of the British public feel
that privacy rights should be “protected” even when it limits “what the
security forces can do when combating terrorism”[4]. While only 19% think that
privacy right trump the security interests of the state may worry privacy
rights advocates, what might terrify them is the astonishing 42% of the British
public feel that security forces should
have more powers than they already have “even if this means the privacy or human
rights of ordinary people suffers”[5].
While these polls reveal that
most people across both sides of the pond are prepared to see their rights
violated in the interests of security, what these polls don’t cover or ask is
what the government will do with the information gained from their
investigations or even if those “investigations” in question are borne from
probable cause or an actual crime. The
polls focus extensively on the question of privacy rights with regard to terrorism
rather than what the government or state security forces will do with the
information.
There is a long and extensive history in the US of the government targeting individuals it didn’t like or
suspected of foul play from civil leaders, including Martin Luther King to
public figures of the American political left. Even when considering the use of
information gleaned from secret surveillance being used catch or use against suspected
terrorist s in court, the evidence is useless as it cannot be used in court
because, you’ve guessed it, its secret.
This creates a classic case of
fruit of the poisonous tree as prosecuting people using this information will
be practically unworkable as it has to be made clear how the information is obtained and if it is obtained violating the suspected party’s right to privacy,the suspected party can and very likely will cite the breach of their fourth amendment and thus render the secretly obtained evidence useless.
Another reason why secret
obtained information useless, is that the government is often less than
forthcoming with how it is obtained as it will reveal a serious breach of
rights the US governments is not prepared to disclose in an open court.
In sum, while people may be
prepared to have their rights breached in the interest of countering terrorism,
the sacrifice may turn out to be pointless as any information extracted through
the state monitoring it citizens on a large scale gives suspected party a way
to escape prosecution as it at once undermines the very rights the government
are trying to protect while empowering the very people it claims it is trying
to stop.
[1]
Pew Research Center, 2013, Majority Views NSA Phone Tracking as Acceptable
Anti-terror Tactic, http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-tracking-as-acceptable-anti-terror-tactic/
[2]
Ibid
[3]
Ibid
[4] Yougov,
2013, YouGov/The Sun Survey Results, http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/lvsq1fe9sl/Sun-Results-130611-Edward-Snowden.pdf
[5]
Ibid
