How Effective is the NSA at Counter-Terrorism? Is it worth it?

Let's discuss the effectiveness of government spying programs. All this data collecting and analysis must have stopped countless terrorist attacks, right? Not necessarily.

As for the Patriot Act, between 2003 and 2006 the FBI issued over 192 thousand NSLs (National Security Letters: information inquiries). Out of those 192,000 requests there was a single terror-related conviction; one. From 2003 to 2005, the FBI made 53 criminal referrals out of over 143,000 NSLs. Zero out of the 53 were for terrorism. The Patriot Act appears to violate citizen's right more than it aids in preventing terrorism.

The NSA seems to be more efficient at thwarting terrorists. General Keith Alexander testified before the U.S. Senate stating the NSA's programs have "contributed to understanding and disrupting 54 terror-related events." There weren't any specific details on the size of the attacks thwarted.

Government programs do prevent terrorist attacks on our citizens and our allies, but the question that comes to light is: "Is the ability to stop a portion of terrorist attacks worth the total loss of personal privacy?" You may shrug off the loss of privacy because it doesn't appear to affect your life. Yet, there are monumental impacts a loss of privacy could cause.

A government that knows everything about it citizen's is a horrifying situation. The United States, being a democratic nation, is no longer under the control of it's citizens as intended. It is instead under complete control of the government. George Orwell's 1984 resonates with this topic with its quote: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

When the news of PRISM broke I read a story from a middle-eastern man who lived in a totalitarian nation with similar government intrusion. He said that while things in the country were bearable there was no cause for concern about the privacy intrusion, but when things became unbearable something unique happened. Those who spoke of rebellion were blacklisted by the government. The government instructed the rebel's employers to fire the rebels or they would end their business. When the rebels tried to find other work they found their records were blacklisted so nobody would be able to hire them. Now with no source of income, the rebels went to family members for help. The family members turned down the rebels because if they aided them the family would be put in jail by the government. If you became sick, you could go to the hospital where the doctors would turn you down because once again the government has prevented you from receiving help. The rebels were left to rebel against their government or die.

It is scary to think that a government that allows zero privacy could turn into such a monster, but it is possible. This is why we as American citizens should fight for our privacy. It is crucially important to a democracy; without privacy a government can become too powerful.

How These Programs Violate Your Rights

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: 

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Although it has been quite a long time since December 15, 1791 when the amendment was ratified, it is clear to make the connection between a person's papers and digital data. For all intents and purposes, a person's digital property is a subset of their papers.

If the NSA is performing automatic searches and seizures on millions of American citizen's papers then the agency is surely violating our right against unreasonable search and seizure. It is easy to understand how foreign targets are acceptable to search in this manner because they don't have the rights that American citizens have. As I have highlighted in my past posts, it more likely that you will be targeted by the NSA's data mining algorithms than not. Your fourth amendment right is likely to be violated and you shouldn't be happy about it.

Current Details on the NSA Programs

An example of how the CO TRAVELER program tracks people by measuring distances from cellular towers.

New data on the extent of the National Security Agency's spying has come to light in the month since Edward Snowden's press release in June. Interesting aspects of the operation such as the manner in which the NSA collects the mass amount of data have been discovered. Also, details on abilities of the system have been added to the already long list of obtrusive behavior.

It has been leaked that many of the major tech companies in America have enabled the NSA unsupervised and warrant-less access to their data centers. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have all been specified as companies that have built back doors into their infrastructure for the NSA. Even if the NSA is not allowed access to these data centers explicitly, the agency taps into the fiber data connections between data centers. This connection is unencrypted so it is easy to analyze this data.

Not only have we learned more about the means collecting data, we have also learned of scary functionality of the system. The NSA program titled: Co Traveler tracks hundreds of millions of cellular phones around the globe without user permission. The system tracks phone in real-time for similarities in travel patterns to know suspects. This means that if you take the same bus and subway to work everyday you could be considered an accomplice of a terrorist suspect and become a suspect yourself.

We can assess that the National Security Agency has the ability to probe many aspects of our lives with absolutely zero input from a judge or other authoritative figure. The NSA can probe your life with almost zero cause for suspicion. It appears that an individual could be targeted near coincidentally. It is scary to think the government knows everything from your location and travel patterns to whether or not you called your grandmother in the past month even how much money you spent on your credit card for that new TV last week.

The Patriot Act: The Beginning

After September 11th, 2001, president George W. Bush rushed the Patriot Act into effect. This is arguably where the mass surveillance programs in America started. The Patriot Act allowed the FBI and other agencies permission to wire tap suspected terrorists without approval from a judge through a warrant. This was intended to target "lone wolf" terrorists that don't work with an established group of terrorists such as Al Qaeda.

Since the FBI could target individuals without going through the warrant process, suspect inquiries happened more rapidly. Yet wire tapping phones isn't the only right the new Patriot Act gave these government agencies. It also gave the right to inspect and analyze phone records, computer records, banking history, and credit history. Yet arguably, the most obtrusive result of this program is the right to "Sneak and Peek" searches. These searches allow government agents with search warrants to "enter a house, apartment or office when the occupant is away, search through his/her property and take photos even seize property without telling the owner until later.

The Patriot Act, in effect, set the stage for more even more obtrusive measures to be enabled by the American government. The Patriot Act is still in effect today even though it was put in effect as an emergency response to the terror attacks of 2001.

Snowden Leaks: NSA's PRISM Program

During June of this year, Edward Snowden surprised the world by 'blowing the whistle' on obtrusive spying programs run by the United State's National Security Agency and the British Government Communications Headquarters. In this video, Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency analyst, leaked the details an scope of the NSA's PRISM spying program to the world.

Snowden stated that the NSA collects all the data it can, whether or not the suspect is in contact with a suspected terrorist. The NSA collects data even on innocent American citizens because it is easiest for the system to collect as much data as possible and discard irrelevant data later. An NSA analyst can probe any individual they want and go through the collected data. The data includes: phone calls, emails, social media posts, Skype calls, and instant messages.

This is a major breach in the American citizen's privacy. As Snowden says, "The U.S. government grants themselves powers unilaterally to create greater control over American society and global society." It is troubling to think that if you ever became a suspected target accidentally that the NSA would have the power to "scrutinize every decision you've ever made." You may think to yourself that the chances of you becoming a target of interest is so small that you don't have to worry. Yet the NSA is allowed to seek out individuals up to three degrees of seperation from the target. If you have the Facebook average of 190 friends and your Facebook friends, and friends of friends also have that number of friends then you can reach over 5 million people. With a few dozen mutually exclusive suspected targets, the entire U.S. population is a suspect.

After the release of this press conference, Snowden went on to say "the worst news has yet to come." Edward Snowden still plans to release more documents to the world to highlight the extent of the NSA's spying programs.