Spooked

Our rights, including our right to privacy, are protected by three things. First, by the law, and the supreme law, the Consitution. Second, by public officials who hopefully have a respect for the law, and enough integrity to not try to bend it.

But thirdly, we are protected by the technology--or rather, the lack of it. Even where the technology exists, the prohibitive costs of implementation may serve as protection. Or so we hope.

We probably don't think about this protection enough. You see, it is very easy for leaders to show respect and integrity by not doing things they really can't do anyway. However, once the technological barriers are broken, it's quite another matter.

Don't just blame the leaders. In fact, technologists themselves are prone to do stuff simply because they can (and if they can't, they sure as hell try anyway).

When the geeks do succeed, they naturally want to show their accomplishments off to their bosses and our leaders, to convince them that the stuff they've been working on is really valuable and worthwhile. Technologists also learn to be good writers, because whitepapers are the tools they use to sell the project they'd like to do or to justify something they've already done.

It works. Their bosses' eyes grow wide, they slap their heads, and they finally see the possibilities. And that is how we lose our rights and freedoms.

The NSA never really had to face any cost barriers. Their budget is top secret. Few if any in Congress actually know how much is put at the NSA's disposal every year. It's a safe guess that their budget is huge.

The NSA's real obstacle was the technology. But eventually that barrier had to fall. It did, quite a few years ago. My guess is that the stars came into alignment just about the time George Bush came into office. And when Georgie got a chance to watch the PowerPoints, his eyes opened wide, he slapped his head, and he saw the real possibilities.

You only have to reach in your own pocket to find a key pieces of technology the NSA uses: It's in your cell phone. Built into that device is a tiny chip and software that can recognize and respond to your spoken commands.

Only a dozen years ago, that kind of technology was so primitive and required so much horsepower that only the true geeks and gadget-freaks would find it interesting. Now it resides on a microchip and everybody has it. Of course, the NSA had it long before it became commonplace, and they could afford the farms of supercomputers to do it on a massive scale.

The Internet was another breakthrough. It used to be that our messages were carried over wires, often buried, and you had to go to a lot of trouble just to tap one conversation. Now you can tap into millions of conversations with one fiber-optic Internet connection at the right point.

Many of us use Skype or Vonage or Comcast's version, thinking our conversations are still as private as when we used POTS (plain old telephones). Guess what. They aren't.

Storage isn't a problem, either. In the last ten years, the cost of digital mass-storage has dropped by two or three orders of magnitude.

That's for voice traffic. If we're just talking about ordinary emails, for heaven's sake, it's a no brainer that the NSA could conceivably process all the communications in this country, day in and day out, without breaking a kilobit sweat. Guess what. They do.

At the turn of the century we had the perfect storm: The technology became feasible. We elected a bunch of leaders who by nature couldn't be depended on to protect our rights and freedoms. And we had an electrifying event that provided all the justification anyone could ask for.

Would a Democratic administration have taken a different path? I'm sorry to have to say this, but not likely. Who wants to be the president who has had a 9-11 event on his watch, and might have prevented it with the resources at his command? Already we see signs that Obama, now in office and apparently seduced by the PowerPoints, has become more comfortable with the worst hallmarks of the Bush regime.

So, no, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the NSA was and is spying on us. Next time you hear of someone who encrypts their emails, don't dismiss it as tinfoil-hat kind of stuff. Maybe you should be doing it, too.

Further readings: Digby, Glenn Greenwald