Running Head: GOVERNMENT TRANSPERACY AND PUBLIC PRIVACY RIGHTS

Government Transparency and Public Privacy Rights Eddie Tribaldos University of Texas at El Paso

GOVERNMENT TRANSPERACY AND PUBLIC PRIVACY RIGHTS

Abstract This paper address the Snowden scandal and discusses American right to privacy and government right to transparency in acts concerning its citizens by analyzing potential policies that could resolve the conflict. It answers the questions: What reasons do government agencies have to secretly monitor citizens? Are these reasons sufficient to justify the need for this intrusion of privacy? If so, should the government be required to inform citizens of the monitoring? A solution that resolves the conflict while maintaining the necessary government surveillance is to increase transparency in governmental programs, a more rigid system of checks and balances, and public awareness of how to protect individual privacy.

GOVERNMENT TRANSPERACY AND PUBLIC PRIVACY RIGHTS Edward Snowden is a name recently mentioned in the news as the target of controversy and aversion. He was a former NSA contractor who made public confidential documents that showed the NSA had been storing thousands of legally protected communications. Some people consider him a traitor, others a hero, but regardless of what we may think of him he opened the publics eyes to some issues concerning the inner workings of our government. This paper address what is now called the

Snowden scandal and discusses citizens right to privacy and the governments right to transparency in acts concerning its citizens by analyzing potential policies that could resolve the conflict.

According to the evidence brought to light by Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting private information from not only foreigners and suspected terrorists, but also from American citizens. This evidence includes documents showing the NSA illegally intercepted and stored emails and phone calls made by US citizens. Mark Clayton (2013), author for the Christian Science Monitor, wrote that NSA auditors detected 2,776 incidents involving the "unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications". He defined an incident as any violation, whether deliberate or accidental, of court-ordered procedures that govern how surveillance is to be handled involving U.S. persons worldwide - whether they are abroad or in the country (p. 1p). In order words, the auditors found 2776 incidents were information pertaining to US citizens was handled improperly. This isnt a recent program however, the NSA has been collecting data since it was secretly given authority to spy on Americans as part of the war on terrorism, stated the Department of Defense (As cited by Yannakogeorgos, Lowther, 2013, p. 224). So we ask ourselves, why does the NSA store all data, including both foreign and American communications? Simply because it's cheaper and easier than trying to figure out

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what to take and what to ignore Princeton computer-science professor Edward Felten explained, "if storage is free but analysts' time is costly, then the cost-minimizing strategy is to record everything and sort it out later". Everything means not just phone records and Web addresses but e-mails, texts, downloads, medical records, retail receipts, bank balances, credit card numbers and travel itineraries (Von Drehle, Calabresin, 2013, p. 32). The NSA isnt as unrestrained as people make it seem, though. Robert Litt, general counsel to the Director of National Intelligence, describes the process the NSA has to take before analyzing any communications involving U.S. citizens with an example concerning a suspected foreign terrorist known to have communicated by phone with U.S. citizens. "We allow only a limited number of specially trained analysts to search these databases," he explained, and "even those trained analysts are allowed to search the database only when they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a particular telephone number is associated with particular foreign terrorist organizations." FISA courts, courts that specifically deal with these cases, must then decide to allow this after given sufficient evidence in writing. Even after all this, the analysts are allowed to use this information only in a limited way, to map a network of telephone numbers calling other telephone numbers," Litt continued, And finally, the analysts don't know the names that match the phone numbers (Von Drehle, Calabresin, 2013, p. 32). The process isnt perfect, however. The chief judge of the FISA court commented saying his judicial crew could not be expected to provide close oversight of the agency. (Clayton, 2013, p. 1p). US District Judge Reggie Walton said in a written statement to the post that the FISA court "is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court", and

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"does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders" (As cited by Clayton, 2013, p. 1p). So basically, the NSA is being monitored by a special court that relies on evidence brought to them by the NSA to make sure the NSA is not overstepping its bounds. This has led to several incidents where the NSAs actions have been unauthorized. The evidence exposed by Snowden brings up two issues, whether our government has the right to secretly monitor citizens for the good of the nation and whether we as citizens have a right to know what programs our government is implementing. The United States is a democracy, where we choose our representatives based on their political ideology and how we think they will vote on issues that matter to us. A transparent government is important because if we dont know the issues our representatives are voting on, then how do we know that our representatives actually share our ideologies? Omidyar Network, an organization that advocates for more government transparency, says that with visibility into government actions and spending they (citizens) can help to ensure that power and public funds are used wisely and are representative of their interests (Government Transparency, para. 1). In other words, with limited visibility into government actions, we cannot help to ensure that the powers of government are used for the interests of its citizens. Barack Obama (2013) stated in a memorandum he sent to the heads of executive departments and agencies : Government should be transparent. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.

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Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information (para. 3). Obama is setting up the groundwork for an open government, but no policies have yet been implemented so that citizens could be aware of programs major government agencies might have that influence their lives secretly. Many disagree with this view however. Mike Rogers (2013), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, argues that NSA programs are authorized in law, with a thorough system of oversight and checks and balances in place, and a court review not present in the past (p. 06a). Others, like Donald Cohen (2013), executive director of USA Today, place the blame for the issue on Snowden and his company. He states that government outsourced work that required discretion, and his private, for-profit employer failed at that task (2013, 11a). Regardless of who is to blame, citizens are growing discontent and distrustful with the government as it intrudes more and more into our lives. Yannakergos and Lowther advice cyberstrategists to discourage the involvement of armed forced in any cyber activity that might conflict with the privacy of any US citizen because such intrusions are making citizens uncomfortable with how the government now touches every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism, causing the DOD to lose support from citizens (Yannakergos, Lowther, 2014, p. 225). The people arent discontent with all forms of surveillance though. As shown in figure 1, more Americans find phone monitoring acceptable, and email monitoring unacceptable.

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Figure 1. Americans concerned about NSA surveillance. This figure illustrates Americans opinions on NSA monitoring.

Some solutions for those that demand change include an increase in government transparency, a more rigid system of supervision, and awareness of the problem. Alessandro Acquisti (2013), an Associate Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, gave a talk on why privacy matters. In this talk he mentioned that the main methods to fight diminishing privacy is awareness that the problem exists and of tools available, like tor browser, a browser that lets the user browse the internet anonymously while leaving no trace, and encrypted emails, which cant be read by anyone except the intended receiver, not even the NSA. If American citizens knew about and used these tools, their privacy would be secure, but it wouldnt completely protect their privacy. Closer supervision would also be necessary so that the surveillance cannot, and will not be

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abused. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont (2013), author of one oversight bill, said in a statement that "using advanced surveillance technologies in secret demands close oversight and appropriate checks and balances, and the American people deserve no less than that". A more secure system solves the current issues but there is not much being done so that it wont happen again. Government agencies could start another program that intrudes on our privacy, or even worse, and we would never know about it unless another Edward Snowden would be daring enough to expose it. So a more transparent government is also needed. In the words of Times magazine, this, ultimately, may prove to be our strongest protection against the rise of the surveillance state. The same tools that strengthen it strengthen those who protest against it (Von Drehle, Calabresin, 2013, p. 32). In conclusion, the evidence brought to light by Snowden changed our perception of privacy and transparency in this modern technological age. We can each decide what changes should be made but the fact remains that changes are needed so that we dont repeat this conflict between the government and its citizens, because after all, this is a democracy. As for Edward Snowden, he should not be considered a traitor of the US for having the courage to show us problems in our government that need to be resolved. Without people like him there would be no change, and without change our impurities would remain forever. In the words of our current president, change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek .

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References
Alessandro Acquisti: Why privacy matters [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/alessandro_acquisti_why_privacy_matters.html Clayton, M. (2013, August 16). NSA privacy violations: a spur for more checks on surveillance programs? Christian Science Monitor. Cohen D. (2013). NSA was bound to overstep. USA Today, p. 11a. McCarthy, N. (2013) Americans Concerned About NSA Surveillance [jpg]. Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/topics/760/united-states/chart/1177/americans-concerned-aboutnsa-surveillance/ Mike, R. (2013). NSA's programs keep America safe. USA Today, p. 06a Obama, B. (2013). Transparency and open government. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment Von Drehle, D., & Calabresin, M. (2013). The Surveillance Society. Time, 182(7), 32. Yannakogeorgos P. A., Lowther A. B. (Eds.). (2014). Conflict and cooperation in cyberspace: The challenge to national security. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis. (n.d.) Government transparency. Retrieved from http://www.omidyar.com/initiatives/governmentTransparency