Collusion between business and
government has hardly been a rarity; the extent of secrecy regarding it ,
however, may be a surprise. Whereas business-government economic partnerships
(as well as university-government partnerships) have typically been made
public, the extent to which government uses businesses to get information on
citizens has hardly been transparent. In spite of a U.S. federal law enacted in
2015, documents
released in September of 2019 “show how far beyond Silicon Valley the practice
extends—encompassing scores of banks, credit agencies, cellphone carriers and
even universities.”[1]
The documents, which cover 750 of the half-million subpoenas issued since 2001,
reveal that more than 120 companies and other entities received subpoenas for
information on customers, users, or students. F.B.I. could lawfully “scoop up a
variety of information, including usernames, locations, IP addresses and
records of purchases” without a judge’s approval.[2]
A gag order keeps the businesses from divulging even the receipt of a subpoena.
So much secrecy accompanying so much power is, I submit, dangerous to a
republic. In fact, the subtle effects on citizens in the public square can
easily be overlooked even if the negative impact on freedom is serious.
The documents reveal that the
credit agencies received a large number of subpoenas, as did financial institutions
like Bank of America. Universities including Kansas State University and
cellular providers including AT&T and Verizon, as well as tech companies
like Google and Facebook also received subpoenas. The public was kept in the
dark, due to “several large loopholes” enabling the U.S. Justice Department to
refuse even to review “a large swath” of gag orders.[3]
Loopholes have been a common practice in legislation impacting business, given
the power of large businesses or industries to influence lawmakers via large campaign
contributions. I submit that the loopholes enabling secrecy on the subpoenas
are even worse for a republic’s viability because of the extent of governmental
power that is possible from mining private data on citizens. The potential uses—again
in the dark—go well beyond reducing or preventing crime.
Political uses, for example,
should not be discounted. Even as Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was assuring
users that they had control over what data is shared, the company’s COO had
devised a business model that would substantially raise Facebook’s revenue by
secretly allowing third-party “app” companies access to user data. The practice
enabled Cambridge Analytic to influence users politically without the users’
knowledge. In the case of the F.B.I. subpoenas, partisans in governmental roles
could conceivable gain access to the data through political pressure (e.g.,
from Congress or the White House).
Moreover, I submit that a government
with a lot of information on citizens is totalitarian with respect to
information, and such a near-totality can easily breed a totalitarian state in
the sense of control over citizens. They in term could be expected to
increasingly fear sharing personal data with businesses. In 2018, for instance,
I tried out Facebook. After just weeks with an account, I was surprised when
the company demanded that I send a photo in which my face is recognizable. I had read that the
company had been working on facial recognition technology, and the explicit
demand for a recognizable face seemed strange to me. I also knew that Facebook
regularly shared user information with third-parties, whether business or
governmental in nature. I had nothing to hide, but I did not like feeling invasiveness even in the demand itself. So
I experimented by taking a picture on a public sidewalk of a poor person not
likely to have an account. Facebook deleted my account without explanation. I
would have deleted the account anyway rather than use a fake picture. I wanted
to see whether Facebook would use its facial-recognition technology to assess
the picture. Either the person whom I photographed had an account or Facebook
already had access from an external
entity (such as my web-site) of my face. Even just the use of secret
software to assess the photo I had submitted struck me as excessive, and I
would not have been surprised to discover that Facebook had access to more
personal information that what I had shared on my account. Facebook itself
could be said to be a private totalitarian state. Given the compromised ethics
in the company’s brief history, I felt uncomfortable with Facebook having any of my personal information and,
moreover, concluded that such a company with a totalitarian approach to
information as a means at the very least of raising revenue is major problem. Sadly,
given the susceptibility of the Congress and White House to political influence
from large campaign-contributions, the
company’s wealth and thus political pull could keep a law from being enacted
that would force Facebook to permanently remove all information pertaining to
me at my written request. It would be interesting if any U.S. citizen could
have access to any data collected by the F.B.I. from businesses and other
external entities unless deemed classified by a judge in the Judiciary. The
purpose would obviously not be to help criminals.
With personal data being
provided on “social networks,” as well as to other companies, banks, phone companies, and internet providers
(including universities), and with the U.S. Government having unlimited access
to that information, a person could be expected to feel that he or she has a
contracted personal space. Even in one’s home, if a cell phone or computer is
on (and even if it is off, I have read), the government may have a way to look
in. Not even a personal conversation on a cell phone can any longer be regarded
as private. The sphere of a sense of freedom of expression has likely come to
be feel very restricted. I suspect that Americans have resisted this
encroaching de facto sense of
limitation on their personal freedom by being in the illusion that an actual
phone call is private and that neither a government agency nor Facebook is
keeping tabs on which sites are being visited or what is being said or done on
a phone. Yet the diminishment of the sense of freedom, especially when a person
is in public but also on private property, is real, which a decrease in the
quality of life going along with the masked fear. The People can regard this
constriction of freedom as being subject to the Will of the People rather than
merely something that can evolve by means of vested interests inside and out of
government. In other words, an electorate need not be passive.
Moreover, a government’s
totalitarian approach to gaining information on the citizenry is contrary to
the notion of a limited government wherein the People are the popular
sovereign. A limited government is a key part of a republic, whereas a
totalitarian government is vital to a dictatorship wherein the People have no
power. Adding to the concern is a private company’s totalitarian approach to
information-gathering, especially if such a company has lied to its users about
it. Interestingly, the third-party commercial app makers can be considered the
company’s clients, whereas the users supplying the data are suppliers. In other
words, the users are not the customers. The suppliers are not paid in monetary
terms; rather, Facebook pays those bills by allowing the suppliers to use the
company’s platform—activity that increases
the supply of information!
In supplying something, a
supplier transfers a commodity to a buyer; the supplier cannot claim ownership
or control of the commodity once it has been supplied. Obviously if the buyer
lies to the supplier regarding the contract, the supplier has grounds to take
back the commodity supplied. The suppliers did not agree (and thus were not “paid”)
to allow Facebook to contract with Cambridge Analytic, a client, to use the
commodity to manipulate the suppliers themselves. To be sure, ordinarily a
supplier would not expect to have any say as to what a buyer does with the
commodity, but Mark Zuckerberg made oral promises that the company’s
user-suppliers would continue to have a veto over how Facebook uses the
commodity, including with whom the said commodity is shared. Because the CEO
lied, it is important for the suppliers to realize that what had begun as a
social network for college students became a business model. Unfortunately, the
typical user is not even aware that he or she is actually a supplier.
Government use is of course different; it can
legally be done secretly, thus without the knowledge of Facebook’s suppliers.
So it becomes a political question of whether the People should allow their
government, assuming it is a republic, to have access. Citizens would be wise
to remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that with great power
comes a huge responsibility even if the powerful may tend to shrug off the
responsibility as they seize even more power.
See related: Taking the Face Off Facebook: Strategic and Ethical Issues, available at Amazon.
1. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, “Secret F.B.I. Subpoenas Scoop Up Personal Data
From Scores of Companies,” The New York
Times, September 20, 2019.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
