A Little Cuckoo

Breaking into someone else’s private property is wrong; it makes no difference if that property is in physical or digital form. There is a wide spectrum of those who disagree, from those in government who say that gathering non-sensitive information in certain circumstances is ethical, to hacktivists who believe that all information should be available to everyone. If there is one side of this spectrum that I relate to more, it’s the government. I have nothing to hide and if they can save lives I would usually volunteer for a certain amount of my online activities being tracked. However, I have two questions, how are they justifying this activity and where do they draw the line? If the justification involves the fact that cyber terrorists are using digital means to invade our privacy and attack our country, by that same argument we could also justify torture or other methods of terrorism to fight an enemy that uses those same tactics. How is non-sensitive data defined for the average citizen? Does the type of information gathered by the “Stellar Wind” program fit the description of non-sensitive? Who decided that? Going behind our backs for this kind of information gathering was not the right way to start this kind of a program.

                A group, while very different from those in the government, that also believes that digital information that can be monitored should be monitored are those who call themselves hactivists. These people believe that not only should they try to gather information, but that it should be made available to the general public no matter how sensitive it is. One justification for their actions is the fact that they are quite often only gathering information, not trying to harm or disable the computer systems that they are hacking into, much the same as the hacker from Stoll’s The Cuckoo’s Egg. This is no different than breaking into these organizations’ physical buildings in search of classified information, which is not what I want people doing in my home or office. Secret information is usually secret for a reason, and many times that reason is to keep people safe. Even if you disagree with a war, leaking secret military information could be the equivalent to personally killing soldiers who were relying on that information to not reach enemy hands. While different groups have different reasons for invading others private digital information, none of these reasons make it ethical.