NSA Sparks Privacy Conversation in US

In many countries, surveillance of citizens is a common practice. In the US, however, recent news has sparked debate about just how willing Americans are to tolerate these practices. By some reports, IT and security professionals are much more concerned about this news than the average American.

Recently, Edward Snowden, IT administrator at Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor for the National Security Administration (NSA), made public details of the NSA’s blanket surveillance programs, including the organization’s practice of secretly obtaining court orders to track telephone calls and emails of American citizens in hopes of uncovering terrorist activities. So, the debate began.

In the wake of this news, The Washington Post polled the public about whether they are “comfortable with the government’s practice of surveillance programs.” More than half, 56 percent, said that the tracking of telephone calls of millions of Americans was “acceptable.” Meanwhile, 45 percent felt that wholesale monitoring of email and online activities should be allowed.

“These people don’t exactly understand IT well enough to truly appreciate the long-term liabilities that something like this creates,” Stu Sjouwerman, founder of KnowBe4 a security awareness training firm, tells IFSEC Global.

The company decided to pose these same queries to a more informed group of individuals: information technology professionals. The poll, which yielded an astonishing 1,439 responses over two days, differed dramatically from the Washington Post poll. Seven out of ten IT pros deemed these monitoring practices unacceptable. In fact, 63.7 percent said the government should not be able to intrude on personal privacy, and 77.4 percent said the government should not be allowed to monitor the public’s email and online activities.

“IT people are better able to estimate the actual ramifications of creating databases that can essentially monitor everything that happens,” says Sjouwerman. “The biggest problem is not so much what happens today or tomorrow, but rather when you have a few years of data and some unsuspecting citizen gets investigated for criminal or, God forbid, political reasons.”

As the NSA collects this broad data, which could include phone records, email, GPS coordinates from mobile phones, credit card information, and more, the danger is twofold. First, the NSA might share that wealth of information with other agencies and organizations. Second, and perhaps more concerning, cybercriminals might target NSA data stores as an excellent target for a cyberattack. “Government in general, and the US government specifically, does not have a good track record in keeping data safe,” Sjouwerman notes.

IT professionals’ strong anti-surveillance sentiment stems largely from arguments about the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Dozens quoted founding father Benjamin Frankin, who said “Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Further, IT people are concerned about the potential loss of privacy and lack of security. To illustrate, Sjouwerman offered a “word cloud” representation of the written comments:

Click here to view Figure 1.

Sjouwerman advises IT professionals to ask several questions when weighing the idea of this type of monitor program:

• Is public privacy and confidentiality being respected?
• Is data collection being conducted professionally and with integrity?
• What are the long-term liabilities of such actions?

It got me to wondering whether this keen objection to monitoring of personal information by government is a more or less heated issue in the United States than in other parts of the world. Let us know in comments how you would have voted. What are the critical concerns you have on either side of the issue?