A Zero-Zero Game

Section III

Professor Moglen’s comments to the first draft of this paper were to the effect that I was overstating the U.S. government’s commitment to maintaining freedom of information in the world. His point, if I understand it correctly, was that while he knows what the American principles regarding the flow of data around the world are, he is in no way espousing the view that the U.S. government will actually go about living up to these principles.

My response is not to pivot away from my previous argument. It is instead to double down by going after the one thing that Professor Moglen states he does know: what the American principles are. Now, admittedly, I do not believe I can accomplish in a paper the feat of proving that American values regarding privacy and freedom are anything other than are articulated in the constitution and have been chanted by every red-blooded American from the dawn of the nation. However, it is telling that in this day and age, Americans are more than likely to permit their government to spy on them if it is for the sake of preventing terrorism.

Every day, American values of freedom and privacy regarding the digital and telecommunications realm are trampled upon. My second paper focused largely on this and pointed out the many ways in which, despite a lack of evidence to prove its efficacy at preventing terrorism, Americans are still willing to let the NSA collect their phone data. The country has reached a point where even a recent federal appellate court ruling that NSA’s indiscriminate collection of phone-call metadata is illegal may not stop Congress from reauthorizing the very same behavior next month.

Yes, the constitution may indeed protect such freedoms. But are they still part of the core American ethos if they are not even as good as the paper they are written on? If the tree that is internet and data freedoms in America falls and nobody is there to hear it, let alone stop it, do these values still ring true in American hearts? My point is that nothing is truly certain anymore. And to paint the destiny of society’s access to data in such binary terms is on even less sure footing when you consider the above.