Spying on Americans (USNWR)

By JEFF NESBIT
July 8, 2013

... While this is certainly true, it also begs the much larger question at hand – while it may not be legal or acceptable to target U.S. citizens, it's become obvious that NSA has a great deal of latitude to collect, sort, and filter the contents of emails, calls and web-based communications that are being swept up as part of the security agency's court- and congressionally-approved monitoring of a target overseas.

More technology won't necessarily save us, but a real national conversation about a philosophy of restraint and the trade-offs between security and liberty just might. Technological advances will continue to roll out, but we are now at a crossroads – as a nation, we need to decide just how much liberty we're willing to trade for security.

In 1940, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator condemned a growing threat in the world. Parts of Chaplin's stirring speech are especially relevant today - the era of technology's ability to sift through big data for personal identifiers: "Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want," Chaplin said. "More than machinery we need humanity."

Just because we have the technological ability to sort through everyone's social interactions to find useful information for potential advertisers (which appears to be Facebook's business model) or comb through emails, phone calls and Internet traffic (the NSA data-sweep model) doesn't mean that we should do so. Something can be both possible and legal – and still not be right.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2013/07/08/spying-on-americans