Big Data has certainly caught the attention of many entrepreneurs, executives, and scholars in recent years. As an article in Foreign Affairs put it, “Big data is poised to reshape the way we live, work, and think.” [1] New York City’s mayor Michael Bloomberg made a fortune off of his operations dealing with Big Data, and the strong interest that major companies such as Google, IBM, and Amazon have all had in the Cloud and Big Data only confirm that this is not a short-term trend but a major change in how we approach statistics, patterns, and analysis of information. Yet, the changes go beyond statistics. Big Data can be used for marketing to people’s needs and whims; it can also be used for researching ways to address climate change (pollution data analysis).
Still, there is a major problem of Big Data when it comes to what the authors in Foreign Affairs have cleverly labeled as “Big Brother versus Big Data.” The issue of digital privacy lacks any hard regulation as to what is legal or not regarding civil rights. The case involving Edward Snowden has recently highlighted this ‘slippery slope.’ Snowden, who worked for company contracted by the National Security Agency, leaked information about various controversial programs that the USA has been running since 2007. This information may include proof that the USA had carried out hacking of computers in Hong Kong and China (this comes weeks after China’s Xi Jinping met with Obama in California to discuss allegations of China’s aggressive hacking of US companies and government files). Such information is obviously embarrassing for the United States and the Obama administration, and there is no doubt that as Snowden parses through more of these files in his period of asylum more information will become public. This most likely explains why America wants Snowden back. If he is in legal proceedings, all the information can be sealed for ‘security reasons’ and the public will no longer have it.
Scarier is that Snowden also found evidence that the USA had carried out a Big Data surveillance program of individuals and had clandestinely subpoenaed phone records. Obama called such collections narrow and directed at a very small percentage of people. However, Glen Greenwald, the journalist who had Snowden as his source, countered this saying that the program was broad and indiscriminate and affected millions of people. Greenwald writes, “The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.”
The Obama administration and the NSA director, Keith Alexander, have claimed that the efforts by the NSA to collect such amounts of Big Data from individuals have prevented at least 50 threats. Yet, officials will only release this list of 50 threats as classified information and again are harboring their actions behind walls of privacy. Ironically, the walls of privacy that our government so covets are walls of privacy that they seem to have no respect for when it comes to the American public. Even if Obama claims that these were targeted collection efforts, then it still begs the question: Who are the targets? Muslims? Immigrants? Visiting college students from regions of ‘threat’? Given the history of the United States when it comes to its anti-terrorism efforts (check out my articles on post 9-11 civil rights violations in the US), it is almost scarier to think that these were ‘narrow’ collections rather than broad and indiscriminate collections.
As an American, a moderate democrat, and the son of immigrants, I am disappointed in this show. I am disappointed in the witch hunt of Edward Snowden. At the same time, a part of me is asking, why doesn’t he just come back to the United States? I still believe in the judicial system being a fair one. Or is it that once again there is more that we don’t know about our government, and that the system is not quite ‘fair’ for ‘crimes’ such as these? As one friend points out, there have been previous cases of similar crimes committed against the United States, and historical evidence does not bode well for the fairness of our American system, nor does it bode well for Snowden.
Whether it’s the Fast and Furious scandal, the Libyan ambassador scandal, the Afghanistan spy fiasco of Raymond Allen Davis, and now the NSA surveillance programs, there have been an uncomfortably high number of examples of gross overreach under the Obama Administration in the past 5 years. Regardless of whether he inherited this from the Bush years, his administration has not done enough to keep us in the light, to educate us as we deserve to be by our elected representatives, and, most importantly, to curb such invasive structures; he has not even been able to close Guantanamo Bay’s facilities. More than anything, this situation hurts because this administration has continually mired itself in clandestine actions and fiasco. They do not have a website that promotes more transparency of government security efforts or data collection efforts, and ultimately we again are left in the dark time after time.
We don’t need to know everything, but a little transparency would help both with the public’s confidence in its government and to keep politicians in line. Furthermore, it would be good to know that when someone decides to stick their neck out to educate the American public about their government’s possible overreach, s/he won’t be held in solitary confinement for a year or more until the court can even see him/her (cough, Snowden, cough). What is needed now is for the American public to get educated on digital privacy and civil rights via Big Data and the internet; for American citizens to be able to have an opinion on this, so they can push for legislation and more protection. This article’s a great start, but don’t stop.
Keep reading and learning America.
Thanks,
Anthony
[1] Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, “The Rise of Big Data,” Foreign Affairs: May/June 2013, Vol. 92, No. 3.
%%leyeslawblog%%