A Different Perspective On The NSA Scandal

by Stuart Shapiro

David Simon, Producer of The Wire, takes a backseat to few in his liberalism.  Yet, he has an interesting perspective on the revelations of the past week (h/t David Haglund).

Is it just me or does the entire news media — as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts? It would seem so.

Because the national eruption over the rather inevitable and understandable collection of all raw data involving telephonic and internet traffic by Americans would suggest that much of our political commentariat, many of our news gatherers and a lot of average folk are entirely without a clue. . .

Having labored as a police reporter in the days before the Patriot Act, I can assure all there has always been a stage before the wiretap, a preliminary process involving the capture, retention and analysis of raw data. It has been so for decades now in this country. The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the FBI and NSA are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. But the legal and moral principles? Same old stuff.

This doesn’t mean that all this wiretapping is either OK, or a good idea.  But it strikes me (like Simon) that anyone who is surprised that it is going on, has been hopelessly naive.  My guess is that the only long term effect of this revelation is that it wakes some people up that they should have no expectation of privacy for whatever they type into their laptop or their cell phone.

And while we’re at it, who exactly is this program supposed to catch?  Terrorists who are stupid enough to use a cell phone or email but smart enough to avoid the government using all other means? (see James Fallows for more on this perspective).

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.