Surveillance State: Safe and Sorry?

The closer that terrorism creeps to home, the more feverish Western society grows and the more eager we are to mitigate the threat and the fear that walks alongside it. This blind panic and trepidation allows a blanket of false security to smother and erode the civil liberties of society, simultaneously normalizing the idea of constant surveillance. Regardless of political standing, this surveillance applies to everyone- a fundamental part of the problem.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, society essentially concluded that the law was not keeping up with the pace of technology: hence the NSA implements the Terrorist Surveillance Program. This was created to intercept Al-Qaeda communications and led to many other similar breakthroughs; however, in my opinion this triggered the domino effect that will inevitably end in a surveillance state.

People could for the first time be targeted purely in guilt by association; with the new systems red flagging Arab and Muslim US Nationals, leading to what could be called as the most aggressive campaign of ethnic profiling since World War II. 80,000 men forced to register, 8,000 taken for FBI interrogation and 5,000 locked up in preventative detention. Zero terrorists were found.

It has become a commonplace in the new world of social media moguls, such as Facebook, for organizations like the FBI to collect information on law-abiding citizens. This was made clear in the 2013 Snowden leaks, proving that the NSA can demand private and personal details from the major corporations: Google and Microsoft.

However, the question I put forward is whether this excessive access to information is truly aiding the hunt for terrorists- or whether it is just looking for a needle in a haystack and adding more hay. Do we need more data, or do we just need to be better interpreters of the data we already have?

Many cases of these attacks could not have been prevented, even using the most advanced surveillance technology; The Boston Bomber Tsarnaev Tamerlan was already an FBI target, yet successfully injured hundreds of people, 16 left without limbs and 3 killed. So: is it really worth surrendering our privacy online and elsewhere with such little reward reaped?

In February 2016, the FBI asked Apple to allow them backdoor entry into an apple device. Although it could have helped the criminal case having the access, it had to be weighed up whether one specific case, or several specific cases in the future, could actually have an impact on society: if it is worth aiding the search for individuals at the greater sacrifice of society.

The future could be an Orwellian dystopia; Already the NSA can turn on our phone mic or our laptop camera under our noses- and this is just public information -what steps toward this world could have already been taken? Or what this access could mean in the hands of the wrong person in power…

So far no erosion of rights or mass surveillance has stopped ISIS or a person making a bomb in their basement, and has only changed the nature of society today. So maybe a better application of present ideas would be more effective than undermining the privacy of the public and working on what is actually wrong with the situation. Is it better to be safe and sorry?