What the NSA and social media have in common

[Commentary] Recently, much has been written about whether the National Security Agency’s authorized storage of anonymous telephone records should be curtailed on the grounds that it’s too invasive of Americans’ privacy. So it is striking that two recent news stories illustrate a less-debated threat to privacy that we as a society are inflicting on ourselves.

Recently, a passenger on an Acela train decided to tweet in real time his summary of an overheard phone conversation by Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA (and my current business partner). The same day, a photo was published of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler at a summer party where he was surrounded by underage youths who apparently were drinking. The ubiquitousness of recording devices -- coupled with the ability everyone has to broadcast indiscriminately through Twitter, YouTube and other online platforms -- means that virtually every act or utterance outside one’s own home (or, in Gansler’s case, inside a private home) is subject to being massively publicized. And because these outlets bypass any editorial review, there is no assurance that what is disseminated has context or news value.

The relevant question here is: Are we creating an informant society, in which every overheard conversation, cellphone photograph or other record of personal behavior is transmitted not to police but to the world at large?

[Michael Chertoff was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009]