Surveillance, NSA, and Snowden: The complications of Big Data in security

Well, just like last week we talked about the good of the internet, now to talk about the bad (or at least ethically gray) of it. Surveillance as stated in a previous post focuses on the personal details for a given purpose, this statement is of course broad depending on the context, but the big question is how focused?

Well if you were the NSA pre-2013, focused meant use big data to collect information on metadata on phone calls, logins of specific technology, and other unknowing data disclosed on social media (Lyon, 2013). What the heck is metadata? well it is not your exact "data", not what you post or where you lie on the political spectrum, but rather the data that was used to POST that data...this being even scarier, your IP address, location of calls/message, duration of message, identity of contact (and why I highly recommend to leave your location services off your phone), word processing program use, license plate recognition data, it again all depends on what context companies or government are looking for this "data about data" (Lyon, 2013). Metadata is scary when you think about it, and as such has gone through legal struggles in terms of who exactly holds the rights to this data (the user, the social network, the government, nobody?). Yet all hell broke loose when a whistle-blower by the name of Edward Snowden, released information to UK's The Guardian dealing with practices by the NSA when it came to collecting this metadata, forcing phone companies to submit this data over. The US isn't the only one caught red-handed doing this, other advanced countries such as the UK have also done it as well when it came to the collection of this data (Lyon, 2013), and I can assure that many other nations not caught currently have similar practices.

And the issue is still tackled this day in other "Intellectual Property" rights

Now, I am not going to be fully sticking up for what Snowden did, as some channels when it came to whistle-blowing may be considered illegal (hence why he is not in the US anymore), but he did create an alarming point to US citizens, that in the age of new technology and this "big data", government surveillance is as broad as ever to all citizens using services from these devices. Fortunately, post leaks, Obama and congress passed a law limiting NSA collection of phone records due to the "USA Freedom Act" of 2015 (Diamond, 2015). Yet by the start of 2017, the Obama administration also relaxed laws to share more data, and allow the NSA to look through raw data, aka more private information to innocent individuals (Savage, 2017). Even with the USA Freedom Act, it is notable to notice that it only mentioned "Phone Records", again with surveillance (and big data), depending on the context it can mean many things! Phone records are only a slice to the whole data pie that is collected!

Issues when it comes to this collection, especially in surveillance can be a "nuisance" when determining who exactly is considered a threat or not. The consequence of broad searches through big data means that automation must take place. As trillions of megabits are shared, it is impossible for a human to specifically collect on a few people doing broad searches, automation must come in and do that job via these searches (Lyon, 2013). Anticipation is also another issue, as due to the automation, anticipatory approaches to handling specific individuals (even if innocent) can cause "Pinpointing potential dangers" (Lyon, 2013), which I don't know about you but why does this sound familiar?

Oh yeah, that's why...

Now we aren't going Minority Report at all (or at least we don't have all the technology to see the future yet). But it does propose an issue when it comes to privacy of information of innocent citizens. The NSA and other securities must adapt to a constantly changing landscape of big data collection and how legally they are allowed to collect this data.


Sources:

Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1-13.

Diamond, J. (2015, September 7). NSA Surveillance Bill Passes After Weeks-long Shutdown. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/02/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-vote-patriot-act-nsa/index.html

Savage, C. (2017, Janurary 12). N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications. Retrieved from The New York Post: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html