Grievously Behind the Times - I Mean, the Post

Me, yes, grievously behind, in that I'm just now getting around to reading Judge Posner's essay on why it's okay for the NSA to be spying on its citizens. Turns out it's simple: spying by computer isn't really spying! And then, of course, we gotta catch those terrorists, so that makes it really okay.

Much as it pains me to characterize the opinions of so distinguished a figure in such terms, I can only call Judge Posner's reasoning idiotic. Invasion of privacy? Nonsense, he says.

... machine collection and processing of data cannot, as such, invade privacy. Because of their volume, the data are first sifted by computers, which search for names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., that may have intelligence value. This initial sifting, far from invading privacy (a computer is not a sentient being), keeps most private data from being read by any intelligence officer.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Posner doesn't have a gmail account, and hasn't been subjected to any of Google's eerie and annoying on-topic ad placements. Anyway, observe how adroitly Posner changes the subject: he mentions "collection and processing" of data, but then proceeds to argue his case only about the "processing" part.

It's not the processing that's an invasion of privacy, duh. The invasion has already happened with the collection of the data in the first place. If collecting personal data isn't per se an invasion of privacy - most especially when it contravenes the law - then I would very much like to know what, in Judge Posner's world, meets the standard.

Incidentally, I'm sure once that private data is determined to have no value, it is of course deleted to prevent any possible future misuse, right? Sure it is. But not to worry:

No secrets concerning matters that would interest the public can be kept for long. And the public would be far more interested to learn that public officials were using private information about American citizens for base political ends than to learn that we have been rough with terrorist suspects -- a matter that was quickly exposed despite efforts at concealment.

In other words, "they wouldn't dare." This is an absurd argument even on its own terms - in fact these two sentences contain their own contradiction. Data will not be misused nor privacy really invaded, because scandal would inevitably result. Look how well that worked in preventing the United States Army from torturing prisoners in Iraq! Um... oops.

A few more howlers:

The only valid ground for forbidding human inspection of such data is fear that they might be used to blackmail or otherwise intimidate the administration's political enemies.

This, from a man versed in both the law and economics, is almost breathtakingly naive. I can think of several other, not unreasonable fears, off the top of my head. And I'm not even very clever at that sort of thing.

Innocent people, such as unwitting neighbors of terrorists, may, without knowing it, have valuable counterterrorist information.

Such as...? Wait - let me just guess that the government won't tell, because that's sensitive information. Might cause a scandal, you know.

Okay, and last of all - and this is in no way Judge Posner's fault -

The Pentagon has a department called the Information Dominance Center? And the "data-mining" program they've developed is called "Able Danger"? Somebody needs to stop reading Tom Clancy novels. Somebody - most likely a frighteningly large number of somebodies - has developed a serious, possibly terminal, case of romance with espionage.