You read that right. I want the NSA to read emails and I want them to listen to phone calls. I'm glad they do it.
The reality is that it's a dangerous world. There are powerful world wide organization that are currently, as I type this, plotting to kill people I care about (maybe me!) and to destroy people's livlihoods.
So I want the NSA to track them, to be aware of them, to stop them.
Of course I only want them to do it when they have probable cause to believe the email or phone call contains evidence of criminal activity, and when that probable cause is supported by articulable facts as explained to a magistrate or judge, who agrees.
Those are the rules by which we have decided to live. For very good reasons.
But our rules appear to be crumbling around us, not as the result of a unified decision to tear them down, but as the result of a series of collective choices that leave us standing somewhere we never really meant to go.
There is a great scenario, first told to me in law school, that I frequently turn to when thinking about how we implement our 4th Amendment protections. Follow me below the fold for a world without the 4th Amendment . . .
A World Without Protection from Searches
First of all, it is worth noting that in this world the 4th Amendment very much exists. The text of it exists upon the Constitution, and it is enforced and guarded within the courts. There was no movement to repeal it, or modify it, and such an idea would be quite horrifying to most. The 4th Amendment stands strong, covering everyone, and protecting no one.
We all agree that the police may not search a home without a warrant, or an exception to a warrant. Of course, one such exception is permission of the homeowner. So in this world one enterprising homeowner decides that they want to be extra safe. Perhaps they are concerned about an adult child living at home, or the housesitter they hire from time to time.
So this homeowner goes out onto his lawn and stakes a yard sign in his lawn:
Law enforcement may search my home at any time.
Let's call it a "Safety Sign."
This homeowner, afterall, is certain that he has nothing in his home he would need to hide, so this does not concern him.
Well, one of his neighbors thinks this sign is a great idea. So he puts one up as well. Soon, several neighbors have them. The people without them look more and more suspicious.
Why wouldn't you put up a Safety Sign? It's not as if the police actually ARE searching through these houses. The Safety Sign is a signal that you are abiding by the law, that you have nothing to hide.
In fact, this is such a good idea that the homeowner association in the area decides to require a Safety Sign in every yard. When selling a home some people require the buyer's to keep the Safety Sign. Real Estate companies quickly refuse to sell houses that don't have a Safety Sign.
You see, the Safety Sign increases home values. It makes a neighborhood more desirable. It would be bad business for a construction company to build homes without requiring Safety Signs. And of course all apartment complexes quickly require them as a condition to rent an apartment. It just makes sense.
Now we add Safety Stickers to our cars. Bumber stickers that give blanket permission for police to search our cars. Manufacturers start to require them, and cars without them might be the victim of minor acts of vandalism. Afterall, "what do you have to hide?"
In this scenario we have managed, through culture and business, to erase our protections against searches. We are still protected from "unlawful" searches, but we managed to make virtually every search that matters "lawful."
It's a distrubing scenario . . .
This is what we have done on the internet.
Google owns my emails. I don't really mind, sure they mine them for advertising purposes. It's a bit creepy to email a friend about how I need to buy new tennis shoes, and then to see an ad for tennis shoes. But it's also handy. And it's not like a person is reading my communications. But see, now I've given permission, I've put a sign on my lawn that says "come inside" and I can't keep people out.
More and more of our lives are going to be 'online' in some way or another. Hopefully our lawmakers wake up and change the legal landscape with respect to our virtual presence, before we realize we all have Safety Signs on our cyber lawns, and there's nothing we can do about it.