Metadata

Big Brother is watching,

The First Amendment does not grant us freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the free exercise of religion. Rather, it guarantees rights we already have, and prohibits the government from restricting them.

   What is "metadata"?
   It's a collection of all data, including phone calls, email messages, Internet search terms, the number of times a computer user has clicked on a link, as well the type of link, plus whatever biographical information a user has posted on a Facebook page, a list of who his or her friends are, where they all were born, the date of their birthday, their marital status, where they went to school, and what their opinions are, as posted on gossip sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and what they shop for, what they actually buy, plus what their interests are, as indicated by the subject matter of the search terms they use.
   Granted, the actual conversations on phone calls may not legally be collected or monitored, at least in America. Supposedly a warrant is needed. However, there is a secret court in Washington that routinely grants warrants to government agencies to listen and otherwise monitor whoever they suspect may be a "threat to national security." Then again, many if not most of the agents in charge of "national security" suspect everybody, so to them anybody and everybody is a threat.
   Every day, government agencies collect many millions of bits of information on the traffic flowing through the Internet, and sift through this moon-sized haystack in the expectation of finding a needle.
   How often do they succeed? What is their success rate? Published reports quote several present or former agents as admitting the agencies have caught just a handful of "possible" perpetrators. So far, however, their success record has been at best minimal.

   Consider this scenario: I may be curious about the Orange Order in Northern Ireland, their history, background, and their current views of events there and how they will deal with a proposal for unification with the now-independent Republic of Ireland. I may also be curious about the Irish Republican Army, and its efforts to reunify the island nation.
   Does that curiosity, in and of itself, make me a member or even a potential recruit for membership in the Orange Order or the IRA?
   Or consider this: I hear a lot about Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and other groups. My journalistic, academic or innate curiosity prompts me to do my own research and read for myself their claims, reports, opinions and comments on their own activities as well as what they think of those they label as "enemies."
   Does that research -- academic, journalistic or idly curious -- make me a potential recruit?
   Or consider an economic historian, who reads "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx. Does that make him or a Communist? (Note: During the McCarthy era, it did, especially since Marx's work was banned in America.)
   Or consider working journalists, employees of major media outlets -- print or broadcast or blog and web sites -- researching a report on either those groups or any other person or organization. Or scholars and academics. Does that research, in and of itself, justify monitoring their activities, thus making them unwitting or even unwilling agents of government agencies charged with protecting "national security"?
   Government agencies, such as the FBI and the CIA in America, or similar agencies in other supposedly democratic countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, claim the right to harvest any and all information floating through the World Wide Web and sift through it in the name of "national security."
   Question: By what right do they make that claim? By what right do they get to trample or ignore these and other "inalienable rights" endowed by the Creator, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence phrased it in 1776, and further detailed by the U.S. Constitution some ten years later?
   Just to be clear, the Bill of Rights, identified by the first ten amendments to the Constitution, does not provide us with these rights. Rather, it spells out a guarantee of those rights we already have.
   Journalists and scholars are curious about many things, as are all folks who think for themselves. For many of the more rabid, self-appointed guardians of the public morals, this makes anyone who disagrees with them an enemy.
   So does all of this commentary make me a "danger to national security" because I do my own research and think for myself?
  Stay tuned. If the CIA or the FBI comes pounding on my door, I'll let you know.