Seattle Times Opinion: How to protect privacy in the digital age: a constitutional amendment

Seattle Times Opinion: How to protect privacy in the digital age: a constitutional amendment by Alex Alben:

WE live under surveillance. In our homes. In our offices. In our public spaces. With the widespread deployment of GPS devices, digital networks and global satellites, our digital footprints are tracked and recorded to a degree we never anticipated and can’t completely understand.

Even before Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency’s clandestine programs to intercept large amounts of our phone calls and emails, we had ceded ground to local police, whose cameras track us both in public spaces and as our vehicles move in traffic. Even before the Patriot Act and creation of toothless Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts, we had ceded too much liberty in favor of theoretical increases in security. And even before the transition to new mobile devices such as smartphones, our data were too vulnerable and too exposed.

It is time to reassess the balance between privacy and security in our laws and our culture and give the public a powerful new legal tool to protect personal data, especially with respect to the communication devices and digital networks that we have come to rely upon.