News
March 26
Debate about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs on Capitol Hill have sparked discussions on the hill.
"It goes to the heart of an important and basic American right, namely the right to privacy," Associate Professor of political sciene Richard Eichenberg said.
As news outlets revealed the extent to which the NSA has been able to access data on popular social media websites, like Facebook and Instagram, as well as search engines, like Google, people - in an attempt to protext their privacy - have become less willing to use these websites, Eichenberg said.
In an effort to give Internet users more control over their digital information, the European Union has begun to consider measures that would protect data from online surveillance, according to a March 12 New York Times article. Yet large Internet companies, like WHO, strongly opposed the legislation as deviation results in fines, according to the article.
And to secure U.S. citizens' phone records, the Obama administration has recently proposed legislation to end bulk data collection, according to a March 24 New York Times article. If this legislation passes, phone companies would hold onto the information - and the NSA would need a court order to access specific records.
But these pieces of legislation are just the beginning of what Eichenberg said will be a slew of changes in government surveillance.
"9/11 was an impetus for substantial increases to this type of surveillance," Eichenberg said. "This coincided with a period of substantial technological change that allows this surveillance to take place ... This combination suggests that [the surveillance issue] will probably get worse before it gets better."
In October 2013, politicians in Congress proposed two bills that addressed this issue: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Improvements Act, which aims to maintain the power of the NSA to gather information from citizens' phone records; and the USA Freedom Act, which aims to decrease the NSA's power and end bulk data collection.
Informing Tufts students about the two pieces of legislation, TuftsLife chief information officer Nick Davis, a senior, published an op-ed on the TuftsLife website encouraging students to "take action by calling or emailing your representatives and telling them to support H.R. 3361/S. 1599," referring to the USA Freedom Act.
Tufts students have since formed their own opinions about government surveillance.
"I don't think the government should have the right to screen communications between people unless they have an underlying reason," Gabe Speeler, a junior, said. "And if there is an underlying reason, there's only so much the government should be allowed to do because the person being spied on has no recourse. There is no way to ethically enforce such surveillance because there is no due process there. Therefore, I don't think mass surveillance should be allowed at all. The line gets really fuzzy really fast. Spying and any sort of surveillance on that scale is an infringement on our personal rights."
One of the greatest challenges in talking about current surveillance policies is how to balance the amount of information the government shares with the citizenry and the secrecy necessary for national security.
"I think that government surveillance would seem more acceptable [to the public] if the process were more transparent," freshman Ronna ten Brink said.
In addition to informal discussions on campus, the issue of surveillance has become a part of some course curricula. This semester, political science associate professor Jeffrey Taliaferro is teaching a new class in the political science department called "Intelligence and National Security."
According to the department's website, "the course [is] a comprehensive study of the nation's intelligence activities over the past decades, particularly as the focus has shifted from dealing with emerging states to preventing mass-casualty terror attacks."
"If it's proved that mass surveillance actually does curb terrorism - and that as long as it's being done in a responsible way and is overseen by Congress - then it can be okay," sophomore Ethan Finkelstein, a member of the Tufts Democrats, said. "It needs to be not done in secret - obviously they're not sharing the records with everyone - but it needs to have some kind of civilian oversight. You can't hide from the American people that you're doing this. Congress needs to play a larger role."
When asked under what circumstances mass surveillance is acceptable to be used, sophomore Jesse Tripathi discussed the complexity of the issue.
"I think that there isn't a simple answer," Tripathi, a member of the Tufts Debate team, said. "Certainly if the surveillance would stop a 9/11 every year, it would be okay. On the other hand, if it barely stops anything, then it's not worth it."
Clearly, it is no easy task to decide where to draw the line between "preventing these mass-casualty terror attacks" and protecting citizens' privacy. In a speech on Jan. 17, President Obama addressed the nation's standards in regards to national security and government surveillance.
"Having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism, the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely," he said. "Those values make us who we are ... Together, let us chart a way forward that secures the life of our nation while preserving the liberties that make our nation worth fighting for."
Despite the political controversy associated with the NSA activity, neither the Tufts Democrats nor Tufts Republicans have taken a position on the content of the revelations, first uncovered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013. But Tufts Republicans President Bennett Gillogly expressed caution about the invasive surveillance policies that have allowed the NSA to monitor individuals' private interactions.
"Many neoconservatives ... value security above all else, and are therefore supporters of the Patriot Act and subsequent related legislation," he said. "However, the Republican Party also prides itself on advocating for a smaller government that doesn't infringe on the rights of its citizens."
Eichenberg offered his own take on the issue of security.
"In my opinion, we have over-militarized our response to what is called the terrorist threat," he said. "Terrorism is a crime, and there are legitimate methods [to deal with crime] before invading someone's privacy. The same standards should apply here."
