No matter the media you prefer for getting information, you are currently being bombarded with the news that the U.S. government has obtained a top secret court order that requires Verizon (News - Alert) to turn over the telephone records of millions of customers to the National Security Agency (NSA) on an "ongoing daily basis."

The story was first broken by The Guardian newspaper, which published a copy of a four-page order on its website on June 5. Specifically, the court order – by the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)court set up to look at such matters – requires Verizon to provide the NSA with "originating and terminating" telephone numbers as well as the location, time and duration of the calls. It gives the NSA blanket access to literally millions of Verizon customers' domestic and foreign phone calls made between April 25, when the order was signed, and July 19, when it expires.  The order does not say why the request was made, but it bans the government and Verizon from making the contents public. It also says the order will be declassified in April 2038.

To say that this has set off a furor would be a gross understatement. 

What we know at the moment

As this is written, the story is still unfolding. 

Being in charge of national security, the NSA has refused to even say if the posting is accurate. After letting the pot simmer overnight without any official reaction, a so far unnamed Obama administration official, without saying whether or not the published material is for real, is being widely quoted in defending the court order if it exists as not including the collection of "the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call."

The official also insisted that FISA authorizes intelligence collection. The spokesman is further quoted as saying that such activities "are subject to strict controls and procedures under oversight of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FISA Court, to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties."

In addition, the written statement given to reporters went on to state that: "Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States."

Verizon has been mum thus far, and the investigative journalism community is hot on the trail as to whether they were the only carrier that received such a court order to turn over records. The NSA has told CNN it will be saying something “as soon as we can.” 

Reactions to the revelation have almost universally been ones of outrage spanning the political spectrum including former vice president Al Gore calling the idea "obscenely outrageous."  

It is also noteworthy that Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not happy. He stated, "While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking.” Comments on the Internet have been a bit too colorful to print here.

Whom can we trust?

Without going deeply into the speculation, legal niceties and political positioning being bantered about, the disclosure of what would be an unprecedented secret collection of private data on virtually everyone and anyone in the name of national security at a fundamental level highlights an issue plaguing not just government, but all of our interactions online. Reality is that none of us really know who is watching and listening, or what they are actually doing with all of the information they are collecting and correlating. This is not just about “government overreach” and creeping “big brotherism,” it’s about a breakdown in trust.

We have entered an era of distrust. The big imponderable is how do we get out of it, or is it just the “new normal.”   

At least on the business side of things, there are some “protections,” if you want to call them that, when we read and agree to the terms and conditions of our use of various services. There we are told what to expect, and agree to have our information “shared” in return for something of tangible value. When it comes to the government obtaining information, the contract is our social contact. We are supposed to trust that they are looking out for our best interests.

I say the following as someone who was a block away from the White House on 9/11, know people who perished in the attack, and who writes frequently about virtual terrorism. I am probably hyper-sensitive for the need for the government to be vigilant. That said, why the FISA court was convinced that the NSA should demand of Verizon so much information without identifying specific targets needs to be disclosed. Security agencies by their very nature will always ask for as much as they can get. That does not mean they should be accommodated.  We all lose something very precious when we all become suspects.

As many have pointed out, what makes this case so unusual and outrageous is that, in theory, if the government is to collect information, it has to demonstrate to the court that the information being requested is "relevant" to an international terrorism investigation. This smacks of being a fishing (not phishing) expedition. It is conflated by the fact that is has been done in the dark with a mandate that it never see the cleansing light of public disclosure until 2038. 

 If the country really is in immediate danger than we have a right to know that so we can take whatever appropriate precautions are necessary based on the characterization of the threat. 

That is the theory. Transparency was also supposed to be a hallmark of the current administration. Its lack of transparency in this instance, and the AP wiretapping one, is very disturbing. In an era of government distrust, the spate of real and perceived “scandals” in Washington at the moment all revolve around breaches of our social contract that engenders government trust. We need to be assured their priority is not just to keep us safe but also informed.

Trust is hard to earn, easily lost and very difficult to regain. One can only hope that there is a silver lining that comes out of this at the end in the form of boundaries and better transparency. Unfortunately that might be asking too much.  I understand those who say they have nothing to hide and who are not bothered by the NSA or other parts of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies keeping tabs on all of us. I don’t fall into that camp.

It historically has been called Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) by the telecommunications community. It is a sad state of current affairs that “proprietary” in the digital world has seemingly lost its relevance. I used to be a trusting soul, now not so much. I seem to be in the majority. This is a breach that is going to be hard to fix.