The Pros And Cons Of Internet Surveillance

"The internet is a wonderful place, and the source of limitless information, communication, and most importantly, funny cat videos. The American government would also have you believe it is a hotbed of terrorist activity. This is not the case, but for the past 17 years, it has given government intelligence agencies the excuse to spy on and collect personal information about millions of innocent citizens, violating our civil liberties and our rights to privacy and free speech. Washington claims that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear; but apparently the terrorists have nothing to fear either, for not only has universal internet surveillance failed to prevent any terrorist attacks against the U.S. since its institution, but

The agency instead used immigration records to identify Arab-Americans, forcing 80,000 to register with the government, subjecting 8,000 to FBI interviews, and preventatively detaining 5,000 in the U.S.’s most aggressive ethnic profiling campaign since the Japanese internment camps of World War II (source). By the way, they didn’t catch a single terrorist. This is just one example of internet surveillance being used to limit the personal freedoms of all Americans, not just the guilty ones. Furthermore, the release of the Snowden documents in 2013 revealed that the NSA is not only monitoring all internet content, but can request additional data from companies such as Microsoft and Google, and turn on iPhone microphones and laptop cameras at will. Beyond blatantly violating the privacy of everyone in the United States, policies like these only make the NSA’s job harder. By monitoring all citizens instead of relying on target surveillance, the government is creating a haystack of information in which they must search for the needle of

But we should not look down on France for limiting their citizens’ right to free speech protest; the U.S. is doing the same, though we are much better at hiding it. In early 2016, the FBI requested that Apple create a “backdoor” to hack into a terrorist’s iPhone. Apple refused in the interest of protecting the privacy of its billions of users, sparking a nationwide debate between those who demanded Apple’s cooperation, and those who applauded their dissent. None of this actually mattered; within a few weeks, an FBI report surfaced confessing that the government had gone ahead and hacked the phone anyway, and had lied to the American public about the need for a backdoor in the first place (source). More than that, it showed disregard for Apple’s position on the matter and revealed the terrifying truth that the FBI can, in fact, access all of our information, at any time, without our permission. This revelation has certainly weakened my trust in my government, and though democracy will hopefully stem this seeming progression into surveillance society a-la 1984, I shudder to think what this information could do in the wrong hands. Let’s say whoever controls Congress hacks the opposing party’s phones. Remember Watergate,