Unchecked surveillance threatens security as well as privacy
The debate over changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the legal framework governing how agencies like the NSA conduct wiretaps—is typically framed as a contest between the competing values of security and privacy. But in an article published in the latest issue of IEEE Security & Privacy, a team of top network security experts argue that large-scale digital surveillance creates new security risks and vulnerabilities as well.
"The US," the authors warn, "could build for its opponents something that would be too expensive for them to build for themselves: a system that lets them see the US’s intelligence interests, a system that could tell them how to thwart those interests, and a system that might be turned to intercept the communications of American citizens and institutions."
