Unchecked and Unbalanced: The Adverse Impact of Cybersurveillance on Government Transparency

Résumé

[extract] General Michael Hayden (ret.), the former director of the National Security Agency, recently told a gathering that what is “reasonable” for searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment “is a product of the totality of circumstances in which we find ourselves in history.” He added: “This is fact. What I viewed as reasonableness on the night of September 10th, [2001], I viewed in a very different light on the afternoon of September 11th at the National Security Agency and I actually started to do different things. And I didn’t need to ask another ‘May I’ from Congress or anyone else. It was within my charter.”

The idea of a more secure nation, especially in such a volatile and uncertain world, is appealing to most people. This appeal is particularly strong in times of war and regional instability. Secrecy often accompanies national security, including cybersurveillance, and goes hand in hand with its general cloak of invisibility. People often do not know cybersurveillance is being conducted or that information is being gathered, stored and used against them. The secrecy can be so great that even within the government, some branches might not know about the surveillance being conducted by other branches.