Scared Silent: NSA Surveillance has 'Chilling Effect' on American Writers

Recent disclosures of the NSA’s widespread dragnet program coupled with its frequent targeting of journalists are having a ‘chilling effect’ on American writers, stifling their freedom of expression at great detriment to society, says a new report Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self Censor.

Published Tuesday by the group PEN America—an organization of writers dedicated to advancing literature and promoting free speech for writers around the world—surveyed 520 American writers and found they are “not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.”

“[D]uring the Nixon years,” one respondent wrote, “I took it for granted that the administration had an eye on me, and if it didn’t, I wasn’t doing my job. For a political cartoonist, active early on against Vietnam, one expected tax audits and phone taps. Irritating, but not intimidating. I view the current situation as far more serious, and the culpability and defensiveness of the president and his people deeply and cynically disturbing.”

Journalists and nonfiction writers responding to the poll were overwhelmingly concerned over how best to protect their sources in this new climate of repressed press freedoms.  Eighty-one percent of writers surveyed said they are “very concerned about government efforts to compel journalists to reveal sources of classified information, and another 15% are somewhat concerned.”

“The NSA’s surveillance will damage the ability of the press to report on the important issues of our time,” note the report authors, “if journalists refrain from contacting sources for fear that their sources will be found out and harmed, or if sources conclude that they cannot safely speak to journalists and thus stay silent.”

As a craft, writing demands extensive research into any number of topics. What the survey found was that disclosures of NSA spying, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, have caused the respondents to shy away from speaking or writing about certain subjects, pursuing research about certain subjects, or communicating with sources abroad.

The report notes, “writers reported self-censoring on subjects including military affairs, the Middle East North Africa region, mass incarceration, drug policies, pornography, the Occupy movement, the study of certain languages, and criticism of the U.S. government.”

Further, many writers said they “assume that their communications are being monitored,” and have thus changed their behavior in many ways which, according to the authors, “curtail their freedom of expression and restrict the free flow of information.”