The reauthorization of NSA spying and why you should be worried

For the most part, it seems that the American public have reached a consensus that unwarranted government spying needs to stop, and there's good reason behind this belief. Congress and the courts, however, have been very slow to act and very lukewarm in their response. Just this week, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the spy court overseeing the actions of the NSA, reauthorized the collection of metadata.  It begs the question: is the government tone tone deaf?

The NSA has repeatedly defended itself when called out for its spying by saying, "it's only metadata." The problem is, collecting "only" metadata is a really big deal.  Thanks to volunteer Ton Siedsma, of Holland, we know what "only metadata" will reveal.  Ton allowed researchers to study his metadata, and the details that could be gleaned are shocking.  The researchers were able to determine his age, work and housing information, politics, and social networks.  They were even able to discern when he got home every day, and by comparing his metadata to publicly exposed hacked password lists, they easily figured out his password, enabling them to compromise his accounts.

While this is disturbing, it should not be too surprising.  The argument that "it's only metadata" really doesn't even make sense when held up to scrutiny.  If the metadata were inconsequential, why would the NSA be so determined to maintain their ability to collect it?  More to the point, how can they belittle the significance of metadata while the CIA and other organizations consider metadata reason enough to authorize a kill, even if the target is American?

The fact of the matter is, any collection of private data from American citizens (and you can make the case that this applies to foreigners as well) by the government  is unconstitutional, except where a warrant is issued by a court, naming a suspect or suspects and citing probable cause for suspicion. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is the crux of the fourth amendment, and it is this protection that helps ensure many other protections found in the Bill of Rights.  In light of this spying and the government's stated willingness to kill American citizens without trial over metadata, people may increasingly hesitate to express their true beliefs, or to buy weapons.  And if rendering the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments impotent isn't terrifying enough, there have already come to light cases of NSA workers using their position to stalk old lovers, watch private webcams, and be generally creepy without fear of consequence (see SEXINT).

The lesson to be learned here, unfortunately, seems to be that privacy is something you have to take care of yourself.  I can make the case for government to end its surveillance until I'm blue in the face, but even if the current batch of surveillance programs end, there's no way of ever being certain the government is not watching you.  The government can even force backdoors into encryption protocols like RSA; Facebook, Google and Apple don't even fight to protect your privacy. It's time to realize that internet privacy is in ones own hands.