Obama Press Conference: FISA and the Patriot Act

The Obama administration recently have provided it's justification of surveillance measures disclosed by Edward Snowden in the Guardian earlier this year. Snowden had exposed, among other things, the NSA 'PRISM' programme, which allowed the US government to remotely monitor the communications of all US citizens.

The administration released two 'white papers' (yet to be sourced) which deal primarily with the legal precedent behind monitoring. As Seth Ackerman notes in the US Guardian, the paper argues that remote monitoring, data mining and bulk collections can be justified under section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the collection of:

"any tangible things," so long as the FBI "specif[ies]" that the order is "for an authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

While the administration has proposed to review measures of transparency and accountability,which includes the secret court that authorises surveillance measures (FISA), the general point to take away from the press conference is simple; the patriot act still lives, and the administration wants it to be stronger.

But is this hipocritical of Obama?

 I don't think it necessarily is, and here's why; Have a listen to an excerpt of a speech he made in 2007 about the Patriot Act:

The actual issue at hand concerns the nature of surveillance itself- what constitutes a violation of privacy and individual rights, and where does the balance between liberty and security lie in the digital age?

According the the initial report (pdf) the administration's justification rests on the collection of big data (metadata)- records that ISPs, Phone companies etc have recorded and archived and tend to be of public knowledge. So Obama argues that actual surviellance can only be invoked after an automated analysis of the metadata, which can flag up certain individuals and groups, therefore falling into the remit of national security.

Proposed reforms may be able to redress the age old problem of the leviathan, but- as the administration finally seems to acknowledge, it can only effectively be done if individual privacy can be guaranteed.