Governments and PRISM: What Is The Limit?

Chances are that the people who use internet products are not quite as aware as to who could be reading the data they leave.

If the mountain of data that consists of every Tweet, Facebook status, Google search, YouTube video, Skype call, MSN conversation, Hotmail e-mail etc. made in this world each day took on physical form, it would blanket entire continents and stretch beyond the stratosphere.

Imagine if this data was tapped into. Anyone that wished to use it could find anything to hang dirt upon any living citizen, without telling the difference between legitimate crime and one word in a sequence of many. But that fear is less so much conspiracy as it is everyday reality. Advertisers receive data everyday to help with their targeting, from Google adverts for products to iTunes recommending you albums to buy.

But it’s not just this premise where information is traded. This week, the United States government has confirmed they have significant access to the world’s social media under their PRISM program. Although Google and Facebook have denied it, the letters reveal the government still has possession of the data.

In unhelpful news for citizens this side of the Atlantic, the government’s GCHQ – who are already trying to implement similar legislation – have permission to use it for their own ends here.

This is all supposedly in the aim to prevent terrorist activity and maintain our nation’s security. But it’s not actually clear what terrorist activity it has prevented, given the American National Security Agency has not said so.

 

Plus it can also be used to stop ‘enemies’ whose only real threat is to be opposition – a crime we decry when it happens in other countries. One example is the Fox News journalist whose e-mail and phone call records were seized for trying to do his job. And as much as Fox News earns much deserved criticism for some of their reporting, it’s hardly liberal to respond by spying on them in such depth and detail.

One of the internet’s original architects, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has commented that he feels the values of privacy are being eroded from his construction.

But this is evidently modern society – with the citizens of the Earth, or at least, the Western world, so keen to share their lives with each other online, there is a voluntary goldmine people can harvest. And not even the flimsy Facebook Privacy settings can save this.

Cliché dictate all of these discussions should mention George Orwell’s breathless dystopic masterpiece 1984. Certainly, this is a perfect realisation of the conspiracy of omnipotent forces observing our every move, but it is doubtful it was foreseen we would do this voluntarily with companies who we let follow us in favour of us getting nothing at all other than being the target.

And all this comes before the routine surveillance of bank cards, fingerpints, passport and all other devices.

Talk like this makes it easy to make people believe in conspiracy theories. In one case it is easy to try to hold onto a rational view because, if such a thing can prevent terrorism, then it is legitimately saving lives. But it is hard to avoid being paranoid knowing everything you say online in any context is potentially in the threat of being seized upon, regardless of motive.

Plus its not so long ago the government was renowned for leaving various high security files in taxis, trains, bins, McDonald’s – in one case, sensitive personal data was left on a roundabout near Exeter Airport. The implications of recklessness with this information could be monstrous, and knowing the reliability of the government we can hardly be confident something won’t go missing.

In the meantime, it also points to an age where you have to monitor what you say. The only way privacy can now exist appears to be if you avoid the internet altogether, and by becoming reliant on the sort of technology spy films use. But as long as you’re plugged in, the chances of that are at best remote and at worst non-existent.

 

This is arguably long overdue given that Twitter is a minefield of ill-informed and potentially libellous conversation. But that doesn't mean to say it's a helpful proposition to contend with.

 

This is also a hammer blow for the credibility of governments. It can be hard to say you are trying to protect liberties while doing this, and it puts questions on a variety of matters.

A big overall reaching question is one asking to what limit this will go to. If those at the top can now monitor everything we say, when will they stop?