Who Watches the Watchers? - The Ethics of Mass Surveillance
Americans have sacrificed privacy for safety through the social contract, but to what extent are citizens willing to give up their liberties? To what extent is our government willing to surveil us? How much can we trust them to keep our best interests at heart? With the breakthroughs in AI technology and online tracing, surveillance has become cheaper and more productive than ever. Mass surveillance brings up images of George Orwell’s 1984, where Big Brother is constantly watching, eliminating privacy and independent thought, directly contradicting what we stand for as Americans.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks changed everything in the U.S., launching us into the War on Terror. Fear spread like a disease in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans. The federal government moved quickly to set up security measures against a large-scale attack from abroad, creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS brought together 22 departments, such as the TSA and the Coast Guard, into a single body with one goal: to prepare and defend the United States against any threat to its people.
During this period of paranoia, legislation was quickly enacted, the most controversial of which was the Patriot Act, passed in 2001. The full name of the act is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001," which describes the atmosphere of American patriotism at the time. The act was sold as a way to deter terrorism by significantly increasing federal surveillance powers. It broadened wiretapping powers and allowed “sneak and peek” searches, letting law enforcement obtain evidence on private property without alerting the owner beforehand.
During the same year, the Terrorist Surveillance program was created by President Bush and run by the NSA, focused on intercepting Al-Qaeda communications. Through this program, the FBI used immigration data to target Arab and Muslim foreign nationals. Over 80,000 suspects were forced to register with the government, the FBI interviewed 8,000, and 5,000 were held in preventative detention. Out of the individuals investigated by the FBI, not a single terrorist was found. The government has moved from focusing on specific threats to surveilling everyone, which not only calls into question the ethics of constitutional violations but also reduces the effectiveness of searches. When searching for a needle in a haystack, adding more hay doesn’t make the needle easier to find.
After the 2013 Snowden leaks, the world found out exactly how far the NSA was willing to go to surveil us. Some of the largest revelations were the Dishfire program, which indiscriminately compiled, stored, and analyzed millions of text messages (SMS). Another was the Prism program. It allowed the NSA access to photos, videos, emails, and other data stored by major tech companies, including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Apple. After 2008, the NSA would be granted power by Congress to threaten court action if companies didn’t comply by handing over information. Constitutionally, the NSA broke the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the First Amendment rights of free speech and association through warrantless wiretaps and backdoor searches of American citizens' data.
After the leaks, President Obama defended the NSA in Berlin by saying, ”We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information, not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved.” These claims were later repeated in court by both Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director at the time, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. However, the government’s claims on the effectiveness of mass data collection are highly disputed. A study by New America found that the majority of cases began with traditional investigative methods, such as using informants and conducting targeted intelligence operations. Mass information from the NSA had minimal uses in these cases, saying, “NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined,” a negligible impact.
Mass surveillance is not only ineffective but also damaging. It erodes democracy and causes a chilling effect on free speech. When citizens are knowingly watched, they censor themselves, negatively impacting self-expression and the spread of ideas. Mass surveillance intrinsically treats every citizen as a criminal, creating a culture of fear and cycles of bias. Privacy no longer exists in a government that abuses surveillance. In 2018, Hungary began using the Pegasus program to target independent journalists and critics. The program was designed to extract data from cell phones, tracking the phone’s user via GPS, and providing complete access to data on the device. At least 300 Hungarian nationals were confirmed to have been targeted by the program, ultimately leading to a climate of fear and suppression of free speech in the country and international condemnation. China currently has the largest surveillance network in the world, which it uses to censor material the CCP deems harmful or critical to the Chinese Government. It has since been revealed that China has begun using AI tools to expand its goals of keeping its people in check. automate censorship, enhance surveillance, and pre‑emptively suppress dissent. It uses facial recognition technology to match a person’s image with their ID; some systems are able to identify citizens by their voices or walking gate.
Mass surveillance has been proven misleadingly inefficient in catching terrorists, calling into question why the U.S. government continues to use it. Despite its downsides, it gave Americans the facade of protection during a time they desperately needed it. However, it also gives the government power to control its people. When misused, it stifles free speech and spreads fear. Governments have used data collected from mass surveillance to blackmail and suppress political opposition, making it unethical, unconstitutional, and an eroding force against what we stand for as Americans.