Pacific surveillance
Everyone’s aware of the Snowden revelations this morning, I’m sure. New Zealand security agencies engage in mass surveillance on Pacific nations, then forward the information direct to the NSA.
This isn’t really about the Pacific at all. People are making arguments about historic friendships, other people are making arguments about particular threats, but they are beside the point.
If you’re cool with government mass surveillance – collecting all information just in case it might be useful – then you should be cool with that in New Zealand, the Pacific, or anywhere else.
If you oppose mass surveillance – if you think you need probable cause before intercepting people’s communications – they you should oppose it in New Zealand, the Pacific, or anywhere else.
The issue isn;t the Pacific, the issue is mass surveillance.
For me, I’m pretty uncomfortable with a the idea of a panopticon that all of us own but none of us control. If the world’s security agencies had a great record on exercising restraint, as directed by their democratically-chosen masters, then I might think differently about that. But the record ain’t that grand. Given this, I think governments should have a good reason before snooping into people’s communications. So I oppose blanket “collect it all” surveillance, whether here, in the Pacific, or basically anywhere else.
Having said that, I think the level of “probable cause” you should need before engaging in background surveillance much lower than you need for, say, an arrest or for a physical search warrant. Electronic surveillance is not as invasive on people’s liberties as a physical search or an arrest would be, hence the lower standard. And I understand that enforcing that lower standard might involve some pre-collection of networking data. I’m OK with democratic governments knowing, for example, who my Facebook friends are. And, if one of my Facebook friends does something to get them surveilled, I’m cool with me getting surveilled for a time as a known associate, too.
I believe there really are threats to public safety out there, and they’re not always in known places. I’m prepared to give up some privacy in the name of minimising those threats. But giving up all of everyone’s privacy goes too far.