Resolution resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance. Violations

Data cannot be distinguished by geography

Wheeler 14 Marcy Wheeler, independent journalist specializing in civil liberties, technology, and national security. She holds a BA from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. June 16, 2014

Response Essays The Drama Ahead: Google versus America http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/marcy-wheeler

That’s an important implication of Sanchez’ point that “modern communications networks obliterate many of the assumptions about the importance of geography.” American tech companies now store data overseas, as well as in the United States. Americans’ data is mixed in with foreigners’ data overseas. Many of the more stunning programs described by Snowden’s documents – the collection of 5 billion records a day showing cell location, NSA partner GCHQ’s collection of millions of people’s intimate webcam images, and, of course, the theft of data from Google and Yahoo’s servers – may suck up Americans’ records too.

Plus there’s evidence the NSA is accessing U.S. person data overseas. The agency permits specially trained analysts to conduct Internet metadata contact chaining including the records of Americans from data collected overseas. And in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this year, Colorado Senator Mark Udall asked hypothetically what would happen with a “a vast trove of U.S. person information” collected overseas; the answer was such data would not get FISA protection (California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Intelligence Committee Chair, asked an even more oblique question on the topic).