Even By Its Own Ridiculous Metric, The NSA Gets A Failing Grade

from the there's-no-peace-of-mind-when-you-have-no-privacy dept

We just recently wrote about Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, arguing (after admitting that the various NSA bulk surveillance programs haven't been shown to have been useful in stopping any significant terrorism) that the real "metric" by which these surveillance programs should be judged is the "peace of mind" metric. Of course, that's ridiculous on multiple levels, as we discussed in that post. But a bunch of the comments on that post highlighted another point that seemed worth discussing in more detail: if "peace of mind" is the metric by which the NSA's surveillance efforts should be judged, then shouldn't it be a significant issue that most of the public has no peace of mind over the fact that the NSA's surveillance efforts are so sweepingly broad?

Way back in June, when the news of the widespread surveillance first broke, we talked about a clip from This American Life talking to lawyers for prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay, who know that their phone lines are tapped, and every one of their phone calls is listened to, no matter who it's with. What was striking about listening to them talk was how this simple act of constant surveillance changed how they acted. It changed how they spoke to people. It changed how they treated friends and family members that they loved. In short, you could tell that these people had no peace of mind at all.

In the meantime, recent research from the Pew Research folks showed that, for the first time ever, more Americans are concerned about the erosion of their civil liberties than of the threat of a terrorist attack. Given that, it would certainly appear that the NSA's mass surveillance programs likely have contributed to significantly less "peace of mind" than they've helped build peace of mind. After all, so far the only thing these programs have successfully "stopped" in the US was one Somalian cab driver in San Diego giving some cash to a terrorist group back in Somalia.

So, really, if we're going to go by the "peace of mind" standard, it seems that there's an even stronger argument for dismantling the NSA's bulk surveillance efforts.

Filed Under: james clapper, nsa, nsa surveillance, peace of mind

James Clapper Says 'Peace Of Mind' Trumps Effectiveness In Evaluating NSA Surveillance

from the do-these-guys-listen-to-themselves? dept

In yet another Congressional hearing concerning the intelligence community last week, Senator Patrick Leahy finally got the heads of the intelligence community to admit what many of us had been pointing out for a while: that there's no evidence that the key NSA programs up for debate have ever actually been necessary in stopping terrorist attacks. While NSA supporters like Congressional Rep. Joe Heck have flat out lied, in claiming that Section 215 of the Patriot Act had thwarted "54 terrorist plots," during this particular testimony, Leahy got James Clapper and Keith Alexander to admit that, at best, the program had really only been involved in stopping one "terrorist event" in the US, and that "event" wasn't a plot, but rather a cab driver in San Diego sending some money to a terrorist group in Somalia.

But the really incredible part was that confessed liar to Congress, Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, tried to defend all this, arguing that figuring out whether or not these surveillance programs were actually necessary or useful in stopping terrorist plots was the wrong metric. Instead, he made up his own metric. The "peace of mind" metric:

There's another metric I would use; let's call it the "peace of mind metric". In the case of the Boston Marathon bomber, we were able to use these tools to determine whether there was, or was not, a subsequent plot in NYC.

Of course, we've already discussed how utterly ridiculous this argument is when President Obama himself used the "post-Boston" lack of other plots as support for NSA surveillance. It's quite incredible when you argue that the absence of additional attacks that never existed in the first place is somehow a "victory" for surveillance efforts.

But, really, this "peace of mind" metric is worth exploring, because it's basically the same thing as "the dictator's creed." Clapper's argument is that he can ignore the Constitution, because it might make you feel safer. As Julian Sanchez argued when Clapper made this statement, under the "peace of mind metric" because of the lack of additional threats, it automatically means that every innocent person's records are "relevant," since they help prove the lack of an additional threat. Just think for a second how insane that is. Sanchez takes the analogy further:

Let's try it for warrants: There's always probable cause to believe a search will produce evidence of guilt OR reassure us of innocence.

The more you think about the insidious nature of such a metric, the worse and worse you realize it is. If the government considers evidence of innocence to be relevant and necessary for "peace of mind" then there is no 4th Amendment any more and there is no privacy. At all. The government, using this made up metric, can argue that any search is warranted because it's "just making sure you're not a threat."

That's not the standard. That's not the metric. It's completely unconstitutional.

So, again, we have to ask: how the hell is James Clapper still employed as the Director of National Intelligence?

Filed Under: james clapper, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance, peace of mind, relevance