Striking the Balance between Privacy and National Security

President Obama’s proposed changes to surveillance plans

President Obama outlined a plan on Friday to improve privacy safeguards used in the National Security Administration (N.S.A.) surveillance protocols. These programs came under heavy scrutiny by the American public following the revealing information from former analyst Edward Snowden, who worked for a subcontractor of the N.S.A. on anti-terror surveillance programs.

The revealing information provided by Snowden about the intelligence gathering process and the propensity of these programs to invade the privacy of ordinary Americans has sparked a debate throughout our country. The central component to this debate: when does national security impose upon privacy?

Striking the Balance

The President was quick to note that the N.S.A. surveillance programs have thwarted terror plots in the past, and that they are an important method in the prevention of future terror activity.

However, the capacity for these programs to infringe on the privacy of ordinary American citizens is a big issue for the President and the N.S.A. at this point. I have written previous articles on this subject, and I view the use of blanket intelligence gathering, such as the Verizon phone records seizure, as unacceptable and not viable as a vehicle to protect national security.

My view of how the N.S.A. has treated this in the past is that the infringement into the privacy of Americans is an unfortunate byproduct of the surveillance programs.

Now, with the whole national debate, this has brought the privacy issue front and center, and the N.S.A. is now forced to deal with some revisions to these programs moving forward.

The public outcry about the subject made this a situation where President Obama politically had to take some action about to temper the emotions running high throughout the country. The President is forced into a situation where he must strike a delicate balance between national security and protecting the privacy of ordinary Americans.

The Plan

I have also written previously about Section 215 of the Patriot Act which regulates the N.S.A. gathering of phone data, and how it was ambiguously written. The government used that section as the “catch all” provision to carry out the phone records seizure and the other broad based surveillance methods over the past several years.

President Obama proposed today to work with Congress to revise Section 215 to do the following:

·        Improve oversight of the N.S.A.

·        Provide clear definition of N.S.A. and their respective legal authority

·        Increase restrictions on information obtained in the surveillance programs

This information was widely covered in the media today, but I thought USA Today did a great job with their coverage of the event today at the White House (www.usatoday.com).

President Obama’s plan also includes the appointment of a civil liberties and privacy advocate to argue cases and challenge the governments’ position in the court which oversees the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (F.I.S.A.).

I have written about F.I.S.A. in the past, and this move today by President Obama addresses the issue I have had with the “secret court”: that it is completely one-sided. The government always presented their case in the past with no opposition, with no representation for the people. I have always felt this was a problem with the oversight of F.I.S.A. and the President has addressed this inadequacy in his plan.

Now, the people will have an advocate, someone who can at least offer an opposition viewpoint to the N.S.A. as they attempt to obtain warrants similar to the one in the Verizon case. It is an important step for the future of the program and for the infusion of more privacy protection for the American people with regard to these surveillance programs.

Under the plan, President Obama announced that more N.S.A. and F.I.S.A. court documents will be declassified in a move to increase transparency (www.usatoday.com).  That is an important step moving ahead, albeit if it is only cosmetic in nature because the N.S.A. is still going to move ahead with classified intelligence gathering operations.

The final component of the plan announced today is the appointment of a high-level panel of outside experts charged with conducting a full review of the intelligence and communications technologies used by the government in these operations. The panel will provide an interim report within 60 days and a full report within one year, making recommendations for improvements to these respective processes.

Moving forward

In my view, President Obama was correct in coming up with this plan to deal with the public sentiment which has risen out of the public disclosure of the N.S.A. surveillance programs. If nothing else, the press conference today was a smart political move by the President to get out in front of this situation again.

I also believe that some safeguards were needed for these programs including better oversight of the N.S.A. and an advocate for our civil liberties in the special F.I.S.A. court; this plan provides for the introduction of both of those provisions.

It is a difficult balance between the national security and taking steps to prevent another major terror event while upholding the rights to privacy that Americans hold dear. In my opinion, some of the surveillance tactics, such as gathering data from every single cell phone, is not going to be effective in preventing a terror attack.

Conversely, if these programs are going to remain active, which they are, I am relieved that the President at least moved the government closer to finding that balance.