AT&T let the National Security Agency set up secret rooms in company offices to monitor public calls and sift through massive amounts of data, according to evidence filed in a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
A whistle-blower who worked for the company for 22 years said a device was installed with the “ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets.”
I’d wager those “preprogrammed targets” include much, much more than Al Qaeda terrorists. Let’s hope this lawsuit leads to the publication of some lists, so we can see how many environmentalists, animal rights activists and other political targets were included.
Regardless, this puts another hole in the tired old line that, “If you keep your nose clean, you have nothing to worry about.” That was the gist of the president’s stance in December, when he admitted authorizing NSA spying on Americans without warrants or court approval: he brushed off privacy concerns saying the taps only involved Al Qaeda, and one party had to be outside the country.
The government will likely say the same this time, that the AT&T taps were limited to “suspected terrorists.” We should take no comfort in that, because the definition of “terrorist” has become so fluid it is being used to target political activists.
It doesn’t matter how clean your nose is anymore: no one is exempt from these fishing expeditions. Setting aside privacy and civil liberties concerns (which doesn’t seem too hard these days), this is terrible national security policy.
What happened to good old fashioned police work? You know, hitting the pavement, following leads, interviewing suspects?
Not only do massive fishing expeditions like this put everyone’s privacy at risk, but they waste scarce law enforcement resources. If you cast a big enough net, you’re bound to get a fish (or an Al Qaeda operative, or an “eco-terrorist”) but you’ll spend valuable time sifting through all the innocent people it caught up.