NSA expansion of Internet spying poses 'serious threat' to Americans' civil liberties

There is no arguing the fact that hacking is a serious national security issue, says Mark Bartholomew, associate professor in the UB Law School, but expansion of the National Security Agency’s surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic is troubling for two reasons.

“First, there is an intentional lack of transparency,” says Bartholomew, whose research focuses on cyber law and cybersecurity. “Despite the recent revelations about the expanded NSA program, we still don’t know exactly how and why someone may become a target of the program.”

Even in the middle of an increased public awareness and resistance to government surveillance, he says, this warrantless program was expanded without public notice or debate.

Most likely, the government decided to conduct this type of surveillance without a warrant because that request must be reasonable and specific, usually targeting a particular defined group or individual, he says.

It also seems like this surveillance program is more broad, looking for patterns across a wide variety of digital chatter, he adds.

“Another potential for programs like this is that it can become a back-door method of policing against garden-variety criminal offenses,” he says. “Without a clear line preventing the data obtained from monitoring international cyberthreats from being used to prosecute unrelated offenses, this kind of surveillance creep poses a serious threat to American civil liberties.”