What are the ramifications of the widespread electronic surveillance undertaken by the United States’ National Security Agency, as revealed by Edward Snowden? How does knowing that your online activities (social media, email, search engines etc) could be monitored affect how you discuss and research sensitive topics? How does widespread surveillance affect how journalists and writers go about their work? If writers and journalists are more cautious in how they research and write, how does that in turn affect how we, as a society, debate sensitive topics?

In October 2013 Pen American Center conducted a survey of over 520 American writers to better understand the specific ways in which awareness of far-reaching surveillance programs influences writers’ thinking, research, and writing. The resulting report makes for a disturbing read, giving some concrete examples of how surveillance leads writers to be more cautious about what they talk about, how they research subjects, and what they publish.

The report can be read in full here (pdf format).

Some of the findings:

• writers are significantly more likely than the general public to disapprove of “the government’s collection of telephone and Internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts” — 66% of writers vs. 44% of the general public. Only 12% of writers approve, compared with 50% of the general public.
• 28% of writers surveyed have curtailed or avoided social media activities, and another 12% have seriously considered doing so
• 24% have deliberately avoided certain topics in phone or email conversations, and another 9% have seriously considered it
• 16% have avoided writing or speaking about a particular topic, and another 11% have seriously considered it.

Why should writers worry? Well, there are plenty of cases of writers being stopped/questioned/refused entry into the United States because of their writing, and not just high-profile cases like those of Ian McEwan, and more recently Ilija Trojanow; amongst the personal stories given in the report, one writer details his experience:

“Selected’ for a special security search returning to the United States from Mexico twice last summer, I learned I was on a U.S. Government list. I was searched for ‘cocaine’ and explosives. I suspect … that I must have been put on the government list because of an essay I wrote … in which I describe finding a poem on a Libyan Jihad site, and ultimately express some sympathy for young men on the other side of the world who are tempted into jihad … one can see how [the poem] might be a comfort to jihadists”

The above might strike you as an extreme example – perhaps, you might think it perfectly reasonable to put a the writer of a poem sympathetic to Jihadists on some kind of watch list; but what of other areas divorced from the spectre of terrorism (ostensibly the reason for the NSA surveillance)? For example, what if writers and journalists found it in their self interest to avoid contentious topics like the Occupy movement? Some of the comments from writers to the survey:

“I am pretty free with political opinions online, but hesitate to write about liberal organizing, especially during Occupy.”

“I have dropped stories in the past and avoided research on the company telephone due to concerns over wiretapping or eavesdropping.”

“I have made a conscious, deliberate choice to avoid certain conversation topics in electronic emails out of concern that those communications may be surveilled.”

PEN has called on the United States government to take immediate steps to restore public confidence that private communications remain private and protected by:

• 1. suspending the dragnet monitoring of international communications of U.S. citizens pending the restoration of Constitutionally required due process protections, including probable cause and individualized suspicion;
• 2. suspending the wholesale, unwarranted collection of telecommunications and digital metadata, also pending the restoration of due process protections;
• 3. reviewing the dragnet monitoring of all international communications and bringing any such monitoring into compliance with established norms, including privacy and due process guarantees;
• 4. making the right to be free of unwarranted surveillance a cornerstone of surveillance policy and practice; and
• 5. reaffirming the United States government’s commitment to preserving and protecting the privacy necessary for intellectual and creative freedom by:
  • •disclosing the full scope of surveillance programs that access the communications of, or information about the communications of, U.S. citizens without a warrant; and
  • • disclosing what data the government is gathering on U.S. citizens without a warrant, the purposes for which the data is gathered, how the data is stored, and the circumstances under which it may be accessed.