An up-and-coming political blogger posts some thoughts on the recent news that the U.S. government has engaged in wholesale spying on American phone calls, in particular those placed through the Verizon system. The blogger allows that he’s not much of a fan of the ACLU, but that its warnings in this matter lead him to conclude that, for now at least, “the ACLU is right.” Weird political pun notwithstanding, I’m inclined to agree with him.
Our blogger also pointed out Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) reaction to the news: “I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.”
Yikes.
It gets worse. Other prominent senators also have come out in support of the program. Senate Intelligence committee chair Diane Feinstein (D-CA) insists that “the only thing that we have to deter this is good intelligence,” by which she means your private phone calls. Feinstein concludes, “This renewal is carried out by the FISA court under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore, it is lawful.” It’s heartening to learn that the good senator considers herself a judge as well as a legislator.Meanwhile, Committee veep Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) adds, “It has proved meritorious because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”
Man, this spying on you really gets the job done. They love it! Aren’t you glad your senators are merely here to help by violating your civil liberties in what they consider a good cause? What could possibly go wrong?
For one thing, you can kiss your privacy rights goodbye. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.
I was moved to compose some comments in the form of a reply to the above-mentioned political blog. Below, in their entirety, are those posted comments. Note: it’s becoming apparent that the government listens in on everything we write or say, public or private, not because we’re important but because they can. Therefore, should things get worse in this country before they get better, I can only hope for leniency from the authorities. In the spirit of spitting into the wind, then, herewith are the comments (which begin with some thoughts about the ACLU):
1. The ACLU often defends the civil liberties of people we despise, and it tends to have a liberal bias in general, which makes conservatives think it’s usually “wrong”. But better to have some baddies live free than good people suppressed. The paper that broke the story, the Guardian, is notoriously liberal, but in this case it did Americans a big favor. Conservatives would do well to ally themselves with the ACLU, where appropriate: instead of splitting their efforts, they’d form a massive, united front in defense of the Bill of Rights. (Still, I don’t envy them the fight, between strange bedfellows, over who gets most of the covers.)
2. The Verizon sweep allows the government to search through an entire haystack to find a few needles. This is convenient for them, and it sounds fine to a senator whose life is insulated (unlike the rest of us) from arrest, either accidental or politically deliberate. (The IRS Tea Party scandal shows how “accidental” intimidation works.) But the gigantic phone tap chills speech: fearing government monitors, will we second-guess our phone comments, and, by extension, our emails, tweets … and blog replies?
3. The Verizon sweep — along with the rubber-stamp court that approved the tap — may well violate the Fifth Amendment (against self-incrimination) as well as the Fourth (search warrants) and the First (speech). But who knows how the Supreme Court might rule? SCOTUS sometimes fights a rear-guard action against executive incursions into the Bill of Rights, and their rulings — ObamaCare, for example — can come out as garbled mashups. The NDAA and Military Commissions Act (under which the White House granted itself the option to assassinate Americans it deemed enemy combatants) have yet fully to be addressed by the judicial branch. Meanwhile, all we have from the Obama side is reassurances that this privilege won’t be misused. But if they can wiretap everybody just to find a few miscreants, why can’t they murder lots of citizens to ensure they nail one or two enemies?
An administration’s promise not to exert arbitrary power against its own citizens hardly carries the force of law. The Verizon sweep shows how the Executive branch can tend to “shoot first and ask questions later”. Without clear judicial decisions in support of the Bill of Rights, recent events will simply give heart to politicians who would rather rule over Americans than serve them.
… There. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Besides, I’m a law-abiding, upstanding citizen, and Senator Graham assures me I have nothing to fear. Government officials won’t decide to start monitoring my communications simply because my comments take issue with their unfettered phone spying. Right? Oh, wait, that’s because they already spy on me. And you. And every American citizen.
When I make phone calls, I can rest assured my conversations are being monitored for my own benefit. I can only hope that, in the future, this won’t result in my arrest … for expressing the wrong thoughts.
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UPDATE: Prez sez “We’re not spying on you! Not really! We swear!”
UPDATE: U.S. government monitoring ALL phone calls and emails
UPDATE: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (But don’t rule out malice.)” — Heinlein’s Razor
UPDATE: Majority of Americans say it’s ok for NSA to spy on them
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Alice Duncan
2013 June 6
I thought the government had been monitoring our telephone calls, etc., since J. Edgar Hoover’s day. I mean, this is new? Or new news? I don’t understand anything any longer.
Jim Hull
2013 June 6
They’ve done things like this before, gotten caught, ensuing public outrage forced reforms … and eventually they try to do it all again. (Technology grows, world events occur, and the Young Turks in government — thinking they’re much smarter than you and me — decide they can get away with it this time. One of these days, they’ll be right.)
In the latest instance, they got permission to search through certain phone calls, and then they rammed through a generic fishing-expedition warrant that enabled them to search through EVERY call on Verizon. (I’m betting this is also true of AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) The idea of a global search warrant kind of makes warrants meaningless, dontcha think?
Madison, Jefferson and (even) Adams are spinning in their graves at 800 RPM.
Alice Duncan
2013 June 7
Well, the Patriot Act made warrants meaningless. Not that weren’t to begin with, depending on who you are. Lord, do I sound cynical?
Jim Hull
2013 June 7
Alice: If you’re cynical, you have to get in line behind ME! The Constitution sets out the rules, but they must be defended continuously against encroachment. Just because the Fourth Amendment specifies limits on searches doesn’t mean that Congress and the president won’t get hyper and pass and enforce laws that violate that rule. They’ll scream, “It’s legal!” as did Senator Feinstein the other day, but that doesn’t make it so. Still, if they shout loud enough, the voters may decide to back them. At which point Mr. Schwartz’s comment, on this page, reminds us of Franklin’s warning.
Robert I. Schwartz AIA
2013 June 7
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
— Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Jim Hull
2013 June 7
Hear, hear, Mister Franklin!
(I’m charmed to receive this reply from a guy who happens to look a lot like Abe Lincoln. It resonates!)
We can add Franklin’s other big warning, “A Republic — if you can keep it.”
The Dissident
2013 June 10
From Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”:
“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite capacity for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”
Postman postulated that we were focused on the wrong dystopia. That it isn’t the Orwellian hellhole we need fear, but rather the Huxley blissful ignorance that wipes the last shred of our intellectual humanity. Admittedly, Postman missed the fact that Huxley’s dystopia in Brave New World actually followed an Orwellian nightmare. Of course, it appears Huxley had it reversed as well. If you look at the cultural and intellectual death that Huxley describes, it seems to be something that’s been building for sometime now in the West, in advance of the Orwellian nightmare. And it appears that this casual disregard for serious discourse in favor of celebrity trash banality and vacuousness has infested our culture for just long enough now where the number of people actually outraged over the creeping Orwellian vision is woefully inadequate to resist it.
Jim Hull
2013 June 10
Dissident: Interesting point, that America might go out, not with a bang but a whimper, as people dazzle our society to death.
You might enjoy this perspective, by Robert Ringer, on the fall of America: http://avoiceofsanity.com/2013/05/following-in-romes-footsteps/
…But who cares about onerous taxes and government phone spying! Did you see “American Idol” this year, or “Survivor”? Man, they were great! I forgot about all my troubles, watching them. I wish my whole life were like those shows!
😉