Never forget a face

The National Security Agency has gotten a lot of press recently.

With the revelation of its metadata collection and its ability to spy on U.S. citizens, it got caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

More recently, the Snowden documents have provided the unwelcome news that the NSA has collected even more data.

This time it’s photos, and the goal is facial recognition through a program called “Tundra Freeze.”

The NSA collects millions of images a day, though most of them are not of high enough quality for facial recognition.

The kicker is that the NSA is expanding its spying methods and types of data collected. It’s not just telephone and email.

One of the documents says the NSA is taking “a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information.”

In other words, the NSA is increasing invasive practices to build digital dossiers on everyone, no longer limited by Congress or the president.

Thankfully, the NSA would have to receive court approval for American imagery just as with wiretapping and email intercepts.

But that isn’t much relief with an administration that has taken a rather loose interpretation in respecting Fourth Amendment rights.

To the Obama Administration’s credit, it does say many terrorist plots are foiled using these measures, and the NSA expedited the development of Tundra Freeze after the 2009 attempted Underwear bomber and the 2010 Times Square bomber.

But when the NSA has the capabilities to intrude on teleconferences, to cross reference spy satellite imagery with personal photos, and to try to gain access to iris scans from foreign governments, the Editorial Board thinks it has gone too far.

Programs like Tundra Freeze might pass underneath the notice of many, but the truth is they are infringing upon our civil liberties as outlined by our founding fathers and the Bill of Rights.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution says we are to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.

No matter what the legal definition of a search or a seizure is, we think the mining of our digital shadows certainly proves invasive.

Though the administration might believe these programs and algorithms are in our best interest, they are far from it.

When the advancement of computer technology gives the ability to track and recognize people through a camera, that is too much.

Executive powers have limits. Of all people, President Obama should know about the dangers of executive overreach because he warned about the abuses of the PATRIOT Act.

We, the Editorial Board, wonder when we will finally give up all our rights in return for promises of stability and security.

That does not sound like America.

That sounds like serfdom.

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