Online Privacy In The United States

As a proud American, I am proud of the freedom that has been bestowed upon me by my ancestors. Our founding documents say that my rights are independent of the government in that they come from God, and those rights have been articulated in what is called The Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. In other words, with or without the constitution, those rights exist and belong to me. The constitution articulates them to harden them into graspable concepts and tells the government to keep their tyrannical hands off of them. If anyone violates them then I have a legal recourse to remedy the offense.

Based on that, I have been taught that we live in a free country, and it’s the best country on earth, etc. I won’t argue with those claims as the US is home to me and I plan on never leaving it, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

As a technology enthusiast, I am aware of many privacy challenges that accompany the online world. Our email communications, text messages, phone calls, and computer files, all of which are private property, are somehow open to and readable by the government, even though that government is barred from snooping on its citizen’s private property.

We have a department of the government called the NSA (National Security Agency) which monitors, collects, and processes all digital traffic, directly violating the US Constitution’s 4th Amendment, which reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

(US Constitution 4th Amendment)

If a part of the government is slurping up every single thing that passes through my digital communications channels then I am not “secure against unreasonable searches and seizures”. I am, in fact, a victim of unreasonable searches and seizures.

So, we tout freedom as the backbone of who we are, then we define that freedom in the Bill of Rights, and then we violate this very freedom which we just claimed defines who we are. What a contradiction.

As I look through the online products such as email, cloud storage, and electronic notes, I have noticed that a selling point of many of them is that they are OUTSIDE OF THE US. Now, that is no surprise to anyone these days, but just stop and think about what that says. The so-called “beacon of freedom” in the world is the worst place in the world to store your documents and communications because the government spying techniques are so advanced and pervasive that they devalue any company who stores their data in the US.

This is shameful. Yes, I am ashamed of that. I am ashamed of the fact that my country is the worst at protecting the fundamental human right of privacy. Additionally, I’m ashamed of the contradiction that we live out, as we pridefully wave our flag which we claim represents freedom to humanity, but then allow our government to operate itself entirely how it pleases, outside of law, and in direct violation of the freedoms it was supposed to be defending.

This needs to stop. The United States needs to halt the spying programs and uproot them from existence. If we are to have any claim of freedom then we need to return privacy to the people so they are once again “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”. If anyone in government is viewing all data transmissions then it needs to either be accompanied by a legal warrant, or else classified as a crime. No special rights for them. No blanket amnesty just because they want to catch bad guys. Either get a warrant to search and seize, like it says in your job description, or pay the penalty for depriving the citizens of their rights guaranteed by the constitution. (See 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law)

When someone is selling a privacy-based cloud storage product, the #1 selling point should be “US BASED”, instead of “NOT US BASED”.