Since Edward Snowden, we know how much intelligence agencies, especially the US’ and its allied intelligence agencies, collect about ordinary citizens. Nothing is private and everyone can become the target. Is that something we should be worried about? Should we be worried about the absolute power enjoyed by intelligence agencies? If so, why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?

We are living in volatile times with terrorism, human trafficking, child abuse, and other cruelties always present. While intelligence agencies cannot prevent tribal massacres, such as happened in Nigeria in January of 2015, they can prevent terror attacks in developed nations and fight human trafficking as well as child abuse. One clearly needs to weigh the benefits of empowering intelligence agencies (giving the government unchecked power) against the impact this has on democracy and the political maturity of society.

All of this is based on the assumption that an all too powerful government is not beneficial to society, because it will abuse its power or individual actors will abuse their position. Even when intentions are good despite the seducing sides of power, not being challenged regularly will lead leaders to follow bad ideas just as much as to follow good ideas, just because of bounded rationality and the fact that one person or ideologically connected group of people will probably not be all-knowing.

So how do we weigh the power of intelligence agencies against the power of society? First let’s briefly analyze the problem with what Edward Snowden revealed: Yes, the US government and its allies do collect and use a previously unimaginable amount of data. We should be afraid that this data might be used against us at some point. But because, anyways, the data exists on the internet somewhere, it is questionable if it really makes a difference whether the government sifts through it right away or at a later point of time. Considering the time pressure on uncovering and preventing terrorism-plots, analyzing the data in real time might even be the better option.

Do we just need to accept the government’s absolute power over society via intelligence agencies then? This is where we have to think outside of the dichotomy of government control versus personal freedom. A big part of the scandal of Snowden’s revelations was the fact that secret courts and politicians with very limited insight and permission to speak supervised the surveillance system. The system took on a life of its own, out of the hands of democratic control. This is where real danger appears.

In most democratic states, society trusts their politicians to make decisions on their behalf and in the interest of society. This is possible, because politicians will be evaluated based on results and they will have to face reelection after a certain period of time. This is not possible in this case. One could argue that sometimes secrecy is necessary in order to protect politicians who want to make a decisions based on their true believes and not on public pressure or financial incentives, but this topic, which involves every person’s privacy and personal freedom, is too sensitive to leave it to a few elected politicians without any accountability. Others might say that secrecy is necessary to limit the knowledge of terrorists, which will then go around the media monitored by intelligence agencies, but now that the extent of the agencies’ surveillance is public, it is time to make proceedings regarding the surveillance public.

Therefore, the solution to balancing the intelligence agencies’ power and personal freedom is not either or, it is a third way. The intelligence provided by intelligence agencies is valuable. The personal freedom and political maturity of society is just as valuable. Combining both, there can be efficient and effective intelligence agencies supervised by politicians, which are accountable to society. Ensuring the accountability by means of transparency and other citizen engaging processes is the cornerstone of such a solution. Instead of complaining about the power of intelligence agencies, citizens should demand the effective democratic control of those.