Too Late for Privacy in America Under the Bush Administration and the National Security Agency

Yet another totalitarianesque Bush administration folly has hit the airwaves. It seems as though each of these debacles becomes less and less innocuous, as though the President becomes less concerned with keeping up appearances of legitimacy toward the end of his term (or, more appropriately, reign).

This time around, the privacy of the American people is further threatened by an enormous database being constructed by the National Security Agency (NSA). If you haven’t heard, this database will hold the telephone records of every single American, including both calls placed and received. As one would imagine, the terms “giant” and “mammoth” used to describe this database are dramatic understatements.

Aside from the logistics of concocting such a beast, the biggest question surrounding this endeavor centers around ethics. Is it really alright to collect such personal information about “private” American citizens? Can anyone really be assured of privacy anymore?

Sadly, the privacy of any sort of transaction involving anything but hands and cash can not be threatened; it is already extinct. The meticulous record keeping of banks rendered check and credit card transactions little more than searchable data nearly thirty years ago. In more modern times, the Internet has become a virtual paper trail of a person’s life, with the ever present, highly identifying Internet Protocol (IP) address being recorded with every single website visit and permanently noted with each financial transaction. After the explosion of technology in the 1990s, these tansactions are just the tip of an enormous, privacy-threatening iceberg.

The latest accusations are just icing on the already baked cake. Most telecom employees today realize that the information being collected by the NSA has been available since the advent of digital switches (introduced in the 1970s and proliferated since). These switches- such as the Northern Telecom DMS series and the Lucent 5E series- keep a record of every single call originating from or terminating to the customers they serve. In addition, Signalling System 7 (SS7)- the telecom signalling system used to set up call paths and so forth- keeps a separate record of the call containing enough information to determine anything but which member of the household picked up the phone.

The main difference between recent history and current events is noothing more than a matter of procedure. In the past, telephone companies kept this information strictly private, refusing to release it even to law enforcement without the order of a court. This information was more closely guarded than doctor-patient privledged records, for telephone companies have always operated in a shroud of secrecy to ensure their survival. Even the offending company’s own employees could be instantly terminated for discussing or even viewing this information, though they often encountered it in their day to day work routines. Yes, the privacy of telephone records was- and always has been- that tightly sealed.

By comparison, this information is now being sent to a national database which- by its structure alone- is less than fully secure. It can be viewed by any NSA employee at any time, with absolutely no restrictions requiring inquiries by the court… or even official law enforcement. It can be- and is- searched at will by interested (or simply bored) government employees for whatever purpose they desire, laying the foundation for a twenty-first century version of the “thought police.”

Yes, maybe those theorists with the tin-foil hats have been on to something all these years.