A View on Freedom vs Metadata

For John, BLUF:  Freedom vs Security.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Here is a very good summation of the argument about NSA, Metadata and PRISM, from my point of view.  At the Kings of War blog, Mr Jack McDonald says "It’s the violence, stupid."  He is a Brit, writing as a Brit, but the fact is that our Government, and our approach to the relationship of the Citizen and his or her Government, comes from that British background.  Here is the lede:

There are many different angles to the NSA/PRISM story.  There’s the nitty-gritty points of law, the bits of the story that don’t add up and the inevitable stonewalling from sections of the security apparatus that don’t want to talk about metadata collection that most commentators consider to be a pretty big deal.  Still, most of the debate is framed in the “Don’t snoop on me”/”A government’s gotta do what a government’s gotta do (to protect you)” dichotomy.

The thing is, metadata analysis leads to people being arrested or killed.  That is the purpose of metadata analysis.  It is to find those individuals and groups the Government believes are a problem to its Citizens and to its own existence.  Metadata analysis is not perfect—it doesn't catch all the possible bad guys.  Metadata analysis can sweep up the innocence with the guilty.  Metadata analysis can be used to control, suppress and manipulate the citizens of a nation.  We are looking for the proper tradeoff.

Here is the last paragraph of the blog post and last caveat:

I put emphasis on ‘potential’ because a) this is a theoretical argument in many respects (given the lack of firm facts) and b) because at current, I’m not too worried about the UK government oppressing large sections of the population, or going after suspected domestic terrorists Baghdad-style.  Furthermore, I think that painting the government in the worst possible light, and ascribing government bureaucrats dubious motives pointlessly blurs the argument.  I’m not worried about the UK government now, but I don’t know what the government will be like in 30-40 years.  I have a good idea, and I suspect that it will continue to amble along like the UK parliamentary system tends to do, but I don’t know. The same goes for the American government.  We can paint them in the worst possible light, but they’re still not quite as bad as, say, China or Russia, who openly coerce sections of the population that disagree with them.  Regardless, I don’t want states (including mine) accumulating metadata, since that might change in future.  Even if any access to metadata databases owned by the government are ‘black boxes’ which can only be accessed by court order, their very existence in government hands represents a latent threat to the population, which remains unrealised only for as long as governments adhere to the rule of law.  Or, more likely, until they pass more laws to enable easier access.

Of course, there’s the valid point that the government has less access to this stuff than the plethora of private companies that do, but the last time I checked, Google didn’t have a paramilitary wing.

Regards  —  Cliff