NSA Surveillance – Should You be Afraid, Very Afraid?

A big news story broke this week by The Guardian (a U.K. news source) about the U.S. NSA surveillance program called “PRISM.” (Don’t ask me if PRISM is an acronym for anything because if it is, I surely can’t find it. ) Apparently, the NSA has been collection phone records of Verizon customers. Later, there were more reports that the NSA also has access to everyone’s emails and Internet activity such as a person’s search history, videos, photos, etc.  As my mind races to think of all the web sites I’ve accessed just in the last week – even accidentally – my initial response to this news is alarm.

What’s happened to privacy, or, as some say, our right to privacy? Technically. The US Constitution’s Bill of Rights does not specifically grant a right to privacy. While the 4th Amendment provides for protection from unreasonable search and seizure, it never mentions privacy. The Bill of Rights does mention “liberty,” which many believe implies a right to privacy. The privacy issue has always been a gray area but some laws are written in keeping with the spirit of a personal privacy.

Should you be worried that the government may be looking over your shoulder? Yes – and no. The argument that if you’re not doing anything wrong you should not be worried is nonsensical; one may not be doing anything wrong but someone who doesn’t know you may think you are, and you may find yourself in trouble over nothing. I’m reminded of a review of a TV show I posted a few years ago (the show was “24”) and afterwards, my site traffic was filled with hits coming from government web sites located in Washington D.C. I suspect that some of the words I used to describe the activity on the show may have set off alarm bells. (As I don’t want the government looking at my blogs, I’ll refrain from repeating those words here. ) Bottom line is that, in my opinion, the government has been looking at Internet activity for a long time. And for good reason. There are people out there who are using the Internet, phones, computers, tablets, and any technology available, to do bad things. While I don’t like the government scanning my every word, I also want them to catch people who DO mean harm BEFORE they actually can do harm. Most people should have nothing to fear by this government surveillance, so stop worrying about what we sites you visited, or about who you called, or what photos you took.

All that said, there should be a right to privacy – with limits. I believe that if the government wants to actually listen to my phone calls or read my emails, they need to get the proper warrants. I can be more flexible on the issue of them seeing what phone numbers I am calling, or what web sites I visit, or even what books I read, in order to thwart terrorism. This is a tough world we live in, and we need to allow the government the ability to do high-level research in order to help zero in on those who do mean harm. We cannot expect the government to protect us when we tie their hands. Search engines like Google and Yahoo, cell phone companies, and web sites like Twitter and Facebook where many post the most boring minutia of their lives are already collecting data on their users, and some people post way too much information to the public on the Internet. The government would be remiss if they didn’t find a way to tap into that hoard of information. The only way to stop the flow of data to the government and to businesses is to stop using all the technology and stop sharing too much information on the Internet – and I don’t see that happening any time soon.


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Where’s The Outrage? Employer Drug Testing & Personal Privacy

Recently, much furor was stirred as word spread that companies were asking to see the Facebook pages of job applicants, going so far as to ask for their Facebook passwords. PC World, in an article titled “Privacy is a Sci-Fi Fantasy, ” states that “The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone wants to get in on the booming business of clandestine snooping -- even blatant prying, if you consider reports of employers demanding Facebook passwords prior to making hiring decisions...What happened? Did the rules change? What is it about digital information that's convinced some people this is OK? Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.”

This problem with employers asking for personal information goes farther back than Facebook or the proliferation of personal information being stored digitally. I put the blame squarely on the decades-long practice of companies drug testing employees, looking for illegal substance use.

Even when the job market was good, people would allow companies to drug test them for illegal substances. Whether or not the applicant had marijuana (or any other illegal drug)  in their system had no bearing on the job for which they were being hired. Many companies used the excuse that if a person used illegal drugs, they would be more likely to steal from the company, or have a higher absence rate, or have behavioral problems. Sadly, I’ve worked with many people who were secret (and not so secret)  alcoholics who were more damaging to the company than those that I knew who smoked an occasional joint. As alcohol isn’t illegal, the company couldn’t get away with testing for that.

Still, if a person is told that as a condition of employment is they have to be drug tested - either using the urine sample method or the hair follicle method - most submit to the test without objection. Now, isn’t taking a sample of your hair or your urine – you know, parts of your body or a byproduct of your body – a more horrific invasion of personal privacy? Yet, in 2012, drug testing as a condition for employment is still very legal and very much in practice…but many are more worried about someone looking at the Facebook page, where people willingly post the details of their personal lives.

I’m of the opinion that a prospective employer – or your current employer – has no right to drug test you, much less ask for access to your Facebook page, especially those areas that a Facebook user has designated as private. But companies get away with demanding the information because people have been willing to surrender to worse in order to get a job. It goes without saying that a person shouldn’t be handing out their Facebook password – or ANY password – to anybody, period. If we need a law to mandate that companies can’t ask for that kind of digital information, then let’s go a step further and extend a job applicant’s – or an employee’s right – not to be drug tested unless there is a specific job related need for doing so. (For example, a school bus driver should likely be drug tested, while someone working a clerical job in an office may not have need to be tested.) While I don’t have any illegal substances in my system – and never did in all my years of working and beyond – I still believe that drug testing is a major invasion of privacy. Oddly,  there’s been no outrage about that over all these years. Maybe there should be.



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