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Privacy and Security


ONE YEAR AFTER SNOWDEN, WHAT'S REALLY CHANGED?

By
Adam Clark Estes
PublishedJune 5, 2014

Comments (105)

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Father's Day is here again, but this year, dad won't be getting an exciting
bucket of leaks from Edward Snowden. No, instead we all get to look back on a
year of NSA revelations and wonder what's actually changed. The truth is,
depressingly little.

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The first reports on Edward Snowden's leaks were published exactly one year ago
on June 6, 2013. Four days later, the whistleblower revealed himself as a former
NSA contractor, just 29 years old at the time. He swiftly fled from Hong Kong to
seek asylum in Russia, where he spent 39 days in limbo at the Moscow airport.
He'd applied for asylum in 21 countries during this time, and Russia said yes
first. Snowden has been living in exile ever since.


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A year later, Edward Snowden is an international celebrity, and the United
States is internationally infamous for its profoundly invasive and
technologically advanced surveillance practices. The American public is more
cynical about how the government treats privacy issues, and the president is a
little bit more outspoken in talking about how the intelligence community works.
But only a little.

All those changes are pretty subjective, though. When it comes down to the
specific, measurable impact of the Snowden leaks on the country and the world,
you have to wade into the weeds a little bit, and separate out the difference
between more insight and actual change. As it turns out, the world today looks a
lot the world before Snowden. Just angrier and more confused.

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PUBLIC AWARENESS ABOUT PRIVACY ISSUES IS BETTER

Let's start with the good news. The American people are certainly more aware of
their right to privacy, and more specifically how that right is being violated
by their own government in the post-Snowden era. (The NSA even hired a privacy
and civil liberties officer for the first time!) The myriad headlines explaining
how the NSA is listening to your phone calls and siphoning off data from major
tech companies left an impression. Few would argue otherwise.

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It's not clear, though, that we plan to do anything about it, either because we
feel powerless or apathetic, or more likely both. More people realize that
privacy is not a given, especially when it comes to communication networks. But
has it really changed behavior? Trust in technology companies like Google which
were complicit in NSA spying operations has probably dwindled a bit, but that
doesn't mean Americans have stopped using Google. It does mean that more people
know about more secure alternatives like DuckDuckGo, though.

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AMERICA COULD BE LESS SAFE

One of the government's biggest gripes with Snowden and his leaks is the extent
to which it jeopardized national security. Snowden obviously disagrees. It's
hard to gauge something like the safety of a country—it's not like there's an
objective way to measure it—but obviously magicians can't do their tricks as
effectively once the audience knows how they work.

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Snowden's leak exposed a lot of classified information about secret programs
that, although incredibly invasive and pretty immoral, were designed to protect
America. Having them in the open makes that job harder. A British counter
terrorism official went on the record a few weeks ago and said very plainly that
the Snowden leaks changed how terrorist groups operate. "Our adversaries, the
terrorists out there, now have full sight of the sorts of tools and range of
techniques that are being used by government," said Stephen Phipson. "I can tell
you data shows a substantial reduction in the use of those methods of
communication as a result of the Snowden leaks."

The counter argument, of course, would be that Americans in this case needed
protection from their own government's invasive practices. It's a trade off that
mostly takes place in the shadows, impossible to quantify, but central to the
Snowden fallout.

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FOREIGN RELATIONS AREN'T AS GOOD AS THEY USED TO BE

The Snowden leaks revealed a lot of very, very shady behavior on the part of the
U.S. government, much of which put foreign nationals in the surveillance
crosshairs. Heck, the NSA was even spying on foreign heads of state, and not
even Barack Obama knew about it.

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So, while other countries were surely upset about these revelations, the foreign
heads of state were straight up pissed. Just a couple months after the initial
leaks, Brazil announced plans to cut itself off from the American internet, as
the country's president very publicly condemned NSA spying very publicly
condemned NSA spying. Brazil even started canceling billions of dollars worth of
contracts with American companies.

One major U.S. ally that was caught in the middle was Germany. Months after
allegations that the NSA tapped chancellor Angela Merkel's phone, Germany
launched an official investigation into the claims. This, along with the fact
that hundreds of millions of Europeans were being spied on, jeopardized plans
for a trans-Atlantic trade agreement and caused many European companies to
explore ways to skirt around the American internet. It also caused American tech
companies to lose a lot of customers.




OBAMA IS SLIGHTLY BETTER AT PROTECTING AMERICANS' PRIVACY

So: Americans gained some awareness. National security maybe suffered. Foreign
relations certainly did. But did the Snowden leaks affect any real policy
changes? Does the intelligence community invade our privacy any less? The answer
to both questions is: yes, but barely.

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In January, Obama announced a set of reforms designed to scale back the NSA
surveillance programs, a nice-try initiative that disappointed many. The reforms
were not completely without teeth. Obama also ordered an end to program that
allows mass surveillance of telephony metadata, although he really just handed
off that task to third parties like telecom companies. The intelligence
community now needs a court order to access this information.

Obama tried to make the effort seem sincere. He called for an end to spying on
foreign leaders "unless there is a compelling national security purpose." He
vaguely called for reforms that would increase transparency in the intelligence
community. He endorsed the idea of ending permanent gag orders on National
Security Letters, and even ordered "a comprehensive review of big data and
privacy" to be led by John Podesta. Did he demand the NSA stop spying so
Americans can stop feeling like they live in a George Orwell novel? Not even
close. In fact, he defended the NSA's spying habits quite a bit.

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TECH COMPANIES ARE MUCH BETTER AT PROTECTING USERS' PRIVACY

This is the exciting part. In the past year, as many realized how the NSA was
breaking into their databases to spy on their uses, whole host of tech companies
have boosted their encryption capabilities. Heck, the very idea of encrypting
basic data like the content of emails was almost never talked about before
Snowden, and now there's a whole coordinated campaign to make it encryption the
new standard. Even Gmail, a free email service, now offers end-to-end
encryption. That's pretty cool!

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The very real, tangible benefit of a more secure internet isn't just about
avoiding the NSA's prying eyes. Better encryption means better cybersecurity and
more protection against potentially destructive hackers. We know that the
Chinese army is assaulting stateside servers on a regular basis. It's such a
problem that some of their officers are now on the FBI's Most Wanted list for
hacking-related offenses.

In a sense, by exposing the NSA's secrets, Snowden actually compelled Americans
to take cybersecurity more seriously. Obama himself has said time and time again
that cybersecurity is of paramount importance to national security on the whole.
It doesn't take much of a logical leap to see how Snowden's leaks will make
America a safer place—or at least America's internet.

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BUT REALLY THINGS JUST STAYED THE SAME?

Improvements in encryption and awareness about cybersecurity aside, not much has
really changed in terms of the U.S. government's surveillance practices in the
year since the Snowden leaks exposed the dirty underbelly. Obama's reforms will
impact several layers of the intelligence community's bureaucracy, sure. But
many Americans and most foreigners should expect to get spied on. However, now
that they know about it, they can do something about it.

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Speaking of those reforms, the president's glaring oversight on certain issues
deserves a mention. Surveillance of internet communication under 702 of the FISA
Amendments Act is largely unchanged, as is surveillance of overseas
communications under Executive Order 12333. Foreigners still have no protection
under surveillance laws, and Obama still hasn't mentioned how he's going to stop
the NSA from undermining cyber security, which it's been doing for years. Oh and
that whole bit about improving transparency? That was bullshit. At least, Mark
Zuckerberg thinks so.

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But none of this should be a surprise. For those who've covered the NSA for
years, it's never been a mystery that the agency's practices are terribly
invasive. We knew almost ten years ago that the NSA could tap your phone even
when it was powered off. So, why should we be surprised when Edward Snowden
tells us that they still can?

What's important and worth emphasizing on this, the one-year anniversary of the
Snowden leaks, is the simple fact that privacy takes work. Whether you like it
or not, the government is spying on you. They've been spying on your for years,
but now, thanks to Snowden, we have boatloads of proof. And while it will surely
take years to see true reforms in the U.S. intelligence community, there are
steps that you can take right now to improve your privacy. You can also thank
Snowden for motivating tech companies to take privacy and security even more
seriously. Did I mention that Gmail now offers end-to-end encryption?

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So do it. Encrypt your email. Use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Give Tor a try.
There's a whole checklist of things you can do to improve you cybersecurity and
fend off unwanted snooping. Even if the NSA's spying tools can crack your
attempts at encryption—and they almost surely can—the only way we're going to
usher in a new era of privacy is by actively working towards it. So if you're
not happy with the amount progress we've made since the Snowden leaks, do
something about it.

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