What we have learned thanks to Snowden is this:
You can never trust your government.
Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?
You can never trust your government.
Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?
I have two heuristics that are related to this topic:
1. If something is physically possible and can be done economically, then it is already happening.
2. If a nation state wants you - or your people - gone, then you're done, period. This is a function of state's coordination power in general, and not of any technology or program they may or may not have.
(Heuristic 1. is, incidentally, why I was not in any way surprised by Snowden's revelations. It was obvious that this is happening. Heuristic 2. is why I don't buy the general argument saying "census is bad because the Nazis used census data to target Jews".)
Heuristic 2. tells me that if the state turns fascist, it's game over, and it has little to do with present surveillance and efforts to oppose it. Heuristic 1. tells me that no matter what the law says, militaries and intelligence agencies will keep snooping on everyone. So given all that, what's the change?
The change will be visible when you forget about doom&gloom scenarios (1) and NSA (2). It's about regular abuses of citizens in a stable state, under the rule of law. If the state sets the rules of the game and then breaks them, you have recourse. There are courts. There are media. Careers of politicians and public servants are on the line. Officials will be reluctant to break the rules out of simple fear for their own reputations and career prospects.
So this is not a perfect win. But there will never be a perfect win, there will be no end of electronic surveillance, as long as we are a technological civilization (see heuristic 1). But it's something to go on, it's a change in the direction of actually achievable balance.
Absolutely. We should just not forget that it is not a law or any other promise from government officials that will protect us from mass surveillance.
What it changes is whether you can be criminally prosecuted based on circumstantial / irrelevant / trumped up evidence.
Although that is obviously an improvement, it is of limited benefit if mere suspicion of criminal behaviour (including "terrorism", the current root password to the legal system) is still enough to impose serious extra-judicial restrictions on someone's life, and there are many laws and government mechanisms that provide for that.
I wonder if one can make a request for information (Freedom of Information Act) about data personally held from the government?
The only options remaining, when you can't trust the laws or the systems that create the laws, are attrition (pervasive encryption and decentralizing of networks to deny governments access to information coupled with aggressive leaking and whistleblowing to limit their effectiveness), violence (which serves the interests of authoritarians and extremists) or acceptance of the status quo.
Slush funds are not unlimited.
Government agencies who want to do illegal things must do them with some level of restraint because reducing volume makes abuse and/or public knowledge of their actions less likely.
Illegal action is more costly at every step (you have to hide it and its paper trail).
Less abuse and smaller (illegal) programs means less opportunity for politicians to look good to the public by holding your agency accountable for violating the law.
Making stuff we don't want the gov to do illegal for the gov to do helps very much because it provides negative incentives for them to do those things so they are less likely to do those things in large volume.
Making something illegal for the gov to do is no different than writing a law that fines private companies for doing something bad. Sure they'll still do it when they think the rewards make it worth it but they'll do it a hell of a lot less overall.
Having a law which stops it probably won't make a difference, but have a law which allows it definitely will.