Published in the July 9-23, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
Since our nation’s founding, we Americans have valued our constitutional right to privacy. We will not tolerate the idea of our government snooping into our lives without legitimate reason. That’s why we applaud Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, (D-San Jose) who represents Morgan Hill, for standing up against abuse of power through domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency.
The NSA wants to collect, store and monitor, without legal warrant, massive amounts of information about private citizens from our phones, emails, texts and other digital data. That violates our civil liberties.
Lofgren spoke about the NSA’s threat to our Fourth Amendment rights at a Rotary Club of Morgan Hill meeting June 4. Two weeks later, the House voted 293 to 123 in favor of an amendment sponsored by Lofgren (as well as Kentucky Republic Rep. Thomas Massie and Wisconsin Republic Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner) to the 2015 defense appropriation bill that prevents the NSA from conducting warrantless backdoor searches of communication devices. The amendment bars the NSA from spending money to implant technology in hardware devices and software that enable the access of private information.
George Orwell warned about the excess of government invasion into our privacy in his classic “1984,” one of the most prescient works of fiction of the 20th century. The British writer could not have foreseen the rise of the digital world we now live in. That world gives us many conveniences in information storage and communication. But it comes with a price at the ease that government can peer into our lives and even secretly collect data about law-abiding individuals. Big Brother would be certainly impressed with the massive base of servers being built by our government in the Utah Data Center to hold and analyze information from millions of digital sources around America and the world.
There are some who say that we should give up some of our freedoms in exchange for national security. If we follow this faulty line of logic toward an illusion of public safety, the enemies of America will have won. Our own paranoia will have destroyed the constitutional principles that lays as the foundation of our nation. That cost to our individual liberties is too high.
The economic costs of the plans are also expensive. It will cost American companies — especially those in Silicon Valley — market share in Europe and Asia when customers on those continents lose confidence in purchasing U.S.-made digital products for fear that they will be spied upon. One projection is that the NSA’s plan for spy devices will cost American business nearly $200 billion by 2016.
The irony is that there is no evidence from the NSA, CIA, FBI or the Obama administration that this fishing expedition style of digital surveillance is effective. The government can use — and does use — smarter, more cost-effective, and constitutional methods of finding the bad guys.
Information is power, and power corrupts. Look not that far back in American history at J. Edgar Hoover who, over the decades as head of the FBI, collected information on politicians, entertainers and national leaders. Hoover’s abuse of power was never checked.
Now the battle for our privacy moves to the Senate floor. Under the assumption that reducing our right to privacy will reduce the threat of an attack against America, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-San Francisco), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will go to bat for the NSA. The NSA gaining this access sets a bad precedent for the protection of our privacy.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law officers can not collect cellphone information during an investigation without a warrant. Respect for our Fourth Amendment rights requires the same rule of constitutional law be observed by our federal law officers at the NSA.
