Page 521 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

00 | Surve llance and Pr vacy

The rapid development of digital information-gathering and storage devices
has facilitated the creation of searchable electronic databases. Digitization is
making it easier to transfer, copy, compare, and combine personal information
stored in both public and private databases. State and commercial entities can
use search algorithms to sort through such data and identify both potential con-
sumers and potential suspects—a process commonly referred to as data mining.
When millions of records can be stored on portable hard drives, it also becomes
easier to steal, copy, or circulate this information.
As we go online to shop, to stay in touch, and to work, we generate an ever
more comprehensive portrait of searchable electronic data about ourselves.
Search engines collect information about the keywords we use to surf the in-
ternet, browsers gather data about the sites we visit online, ATM machines keep
track of where we withdraw money, and cell phone companies can monitor our
movements throughout the course of the day. We are rapidly moving toward
what Bill Gates has described as a “fully documented life”—one in which all of
our movements and transactions are redoubled by information about them that
can be digitally stored and searched.

BLurring ThE BounDariEs
In the United States, there has been a tendency on the part of the populace
to distinguish between state and commercial surveillance and to be more con-
cerned about the former. In the post-9/11 era, however, the distinction between
these two forms of surveillance is becoming increasingly blurred, as govern-
ment officials seek access to commercial databases to identify potential security
threats. Database companies are building lucrative new markets in government
security contracts, many of which are classified—sometimes, ironically, in the
name of privacy protection (O’Harrow, Jr. 2005).

goVernMent surVeillanCe and national seCurity

One of the ongoing debates in the government’s declared war on terrorism is likely to be
just how much surveillance power it should be granted in the name of national security. In
December 2005, the New York Times revealed that President George W. Bush had autho-
rized a covert National Security Agency program to monitor international telephone con-
versations of U.S. residents suspected of links to potential terrorist threats. The program
was controversial because it sidestepped laws requiring the government to obtain search
warrants through a special court designated for this purpose by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. The program was deemed illegal by a U.S. district judge in 2006, but the
decision was appealed by the government. Republican legislators responded to the contro-
versy by seeking to pass legislation that would officially sanction the wiretapping program.
The legal back-and-forth is part of an ongoing struggle between a government seeking
surveillance power in the name of national security and a populace wary of unaccountable
state monitoring.