In a recent editorial, “Chilling Effect? Or Permanent Freeze?” (Connecticut Law Tribune, Aug. 12, 2013), we described (our words) “a frightening, Orwellian climate of secrecy, snooping and overreaching by our government,” with particular reference to right to counsel, freedom of speech and of the press. Recent revelations based on the NSA/Snowden documents in The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica cause us to repeat our plea — with added urgency — that the legal profession take the lead on a national debate regarding the limits of the government’s power in the name of national security.
It is an inescapable fact that the capability of the government to snoop, eavesdrop and copy is virtually limitless. Worse, it appears to be metastasizing. We earlier noted the threat to press freedom caused by National Security Letters (NSLs) and the sweeping powers granted to law enforcement officials under the USA Patriot Act. We now know from the Snowden/NSA documents that the government’s capabilities go well beyond mere snooping, secret subpoenas and metadata mining of cell phones and landline phones. The government is now able to evade or crack encryption/digital scrambling, on a universal basis, virtually every existing system of global communication — commerce and banking, trade secrets, emails, internet chats and ordinary phone calls.
