Journalism of Courage
The extent of the NSAs surveillance may finally shift the discourse on privacy from collusion to action.
When the story about the US National Security Agencys electronic surveillance programme broke earlier this year,Edward Snowdens revelations were greeted with equal parts hand-wringing and indignation. But there was also a collective shrug. After all,internet users have,for the most part,seemed only too willing to trade personal privacy for convenience. The initial round of revelations focused on whether and how the NSA had colluded with intelligence agencies around the world to accumulate personal data on,primarily,non-Americans or so goes the defence. Until a few weeks ago,the Snowden episode appeared broadly to illustrate the limits of privacy laws when there was broad agreement within the political class on the usefulness of electronic surveillance.
Since the scale of the NSAs cyber operations became public,the temptation of political leaders has been to place concerns of government overreach in the context of national security and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks. It is true that the European reaction has been a touch hypocritical; are these states outraged at the extent of the USs spying,or envious of its capabilities? Yet,it is also inarguable that these revelations are finally having a pronounced political effect.
