Domestic Security Surveillance and Civil Liberties

摘要

Surveillance is a key intelligence tool that has the potential to contribute significantly to national security but also to infringe civil liberties. This potential is especially important because information science and technology have expanded dramatically the mechanisms by which data can be collected and knowledge extracted and thereafter disseminated. Moreover, in times of national or social threat, history has demonstrated that governments often expand surveillance and other powers at the expense of citizen rights; this expansion is accompanied by arguments that the innocent have nothing to fear, that mistakes can be corrected, and that the status quo will return when the danger is past. All too often, history also confirms that these powers tend to become a new and diminished baseline of legal rights.