US
Prism Scandal
'Security Is
Not an End in Itself'
SPIEGEL ONLINE
June 11, 2013 – 11:12 AM
A Commentary by German Justice Minister Sabine
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger
How much monitoring is too much and at what point does
freedom become compromised? With its Prism spy program, the US has
crossed the line.
Shortly before US President Barack Obama's visit to Berlin,
Germans are troubled by questions regarding the extent to which the United
States monitors Internet traffic worldwide. Is it true, as the media claim,
that the United States can access and track virtually every form of
communication on the Internet at the source? The Guardian and the Washington
Post reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) could gain direct
access to and read user data with the so-called "Prism" program. An
unnamed intelligence officer was quoted by the Washington Post as saying
that the NSA could "quite literally … watch your ideas form as you
type."
Internet giants like Facebook and Google were quick to issue
denials, saying that they do not release any information without a court order.
But doubts remain.
These reports are deeply disconcerting. When viewed in its
entirety, this massive effort to acquire information, if it
is true, would be dangerous.
On the weekend, President Obama reacted by saying that it is
impossible to have 100 percent security and 100 percent privacy and zero
inconvenience.
I don't share this view. The more a society monitors,
controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is. In a
democratic constitutional state, security is not an end in itself,
but serves to secure freedom.
A
Reasonable Balance
America has been a different country since the
horrible terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The country's security
architecture was drastically restructured. One goal was to link all
institutions and create a broad flow of information among the different
security agencies. The relationship between freedom and security has
shifted, to the detriment of freedom, especially as a result of the Patriot
Act, which was introduced only a few days after 9/11. The Patriot Act is
essentially a number of legislative packages passed in rapid succession. They
expanded the opportunities for surveillance, just as they created the
possibility of imprisonment for the purpose of preventing acts of terror.
To summarize: As much as we want counterterrorism efforts to
be effective, there has to be a reasonable balance between security and the
freedom of citizens. The Patriot Act significantly limited the civil
rights of Americans.
The development was repeatedly criticized internationally.
President Obama, a lawyer specializing in US constitutional law, was also
critical of this development in the past. But the restrictions on civil rights
and liberties enacted in connection with President George W. Bush's "War
on Terror" have not been reversed since Obama became president.
Alarming
and Cannot Be Ignored
We should remember that the strength of the liberal constitutional state
lies
in the trust of its citizens. Constitutional guarantees protect this
trust and pursue two objectives: to punish the guilty and to protect the
innocent or those who are unjustly suspected of a crime against wrongful
actions by the government. These are precisely the tenets Germany adopted
in 1949 from the tradition of the American Constitution of 1776 --
namely that in a free and open democratic process, it is important to avoid the
impression that the protection of basic rights is not being taken seriously
enough.
The American politician and author Benjamin Franklin once
wrote: "Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The suspicion of excessive surveillance of communication is
so alarming that it cannot be ignored. For that reason, openness and
clarification by the US administration itself should be paramount at this
point. All facts must be put on the table.
The global Internet has become indispensible for a
competitive economy, the sharing of information and the strengthening of human
rights in authoritarian countries. But our trust in these technologies
threatens to be lost in the face of comprehensive surveillance activities.
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