ENEMY OF THE STATE PART FOUR: ON LIBERTY…AND UNJUST HACKING

John Stuart Mill’s publication On Liberty which is held by many Americans in the highest of regards contains an entire chapter that may be applied to the NSA’s methods of surveillance that have recently emerged at the forefront of American controversy – chapter four, entitled “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual”. Within this chapter one may find text that supports the claims of the opponents of the NSA, such as Glenn Greenwald. One such excerpt that Greenwald and those with similar views to him could use to support their arguments is when Mill says, “What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavorable judgment of others, are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not affect the interests of others in their relations with him.” Essentially, what Mill means in that passage from On Liberty is that only the person in question engaging in activities that are harmful to society should be held accountable, and that anyone connected to the person in question should not be dragged into the person in question’s accountability. This can be applied to the situation with NSA surveillance in that this statement would serve to condemn the NSA’s mass surveillance and method of monitoring suspicious persons in that the NSA – after detecting suspicious activity coming from a single person – not only begins to investigate the person of interest but also proceeds to connect the dots between the person of interest and all people in relation therewith. This, according to the aforementioned claim of Mill, is where the NSA is crossing the line, for it is only justifiable to monitor the actions of the person of interest and rather unjust to drag others into it. This excerpt from On Liberty serves to give one possible answer to the ever important question: What are, or what should be, the limits of the NSA?