1984, All Over Again

My friend, Alan Skontra, is one of the smartest people I've ever met and most-likely the best writer I'll ever know. I want to share one of the essays he recently wrote regarding the increasing popular approval of public surveillance.
I'll leave the criticism to Alan. But first, a famous quote from Benjamin Franklin comes to mind. "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

I Put A Spy On You: The Dangers of a Government Allowed to See Everything

August 2007

Congress just approved a bill allowing the government to conduct surveillance on Americans, including the authority to wiretap phone calls and email without a warrant. President Bush seemed anxious to sign the measure, although his administration has acted as if it had these powers all along.

The federal provisions come while New York city plans to implement a so-called ring of steel in lower Manhattan, a matrix of cameras used to scan crowds for suspicious activity. Washington and Baltimore have already introduced such devices, as has London, whose authorities credit the cameras for helping them arrest accused terrorists. Polls consistently show by wide margins that Americans support increased government surveillance on domestic soil. Their approval originates out of a hope to prevent another terrorist attack or at least apprehend those responsible if one occurs.

They must also really, really trust the politicians who get to use this power. The arguments in favor of increased surveillance seem prudent at first, to fight terrorists. Any rational person wants to do that. The problem involves who exactly decides who the terrorists are. In this case a fraction of officials get to suspect as large a group as they want, without safeguards like a court to prevent them from making a mistake. If the already loose and abstract definition of terrorist was ever widened to include people with political differences, there are no limits to who among us could be persecuted.

Americans don't seem to worry about the government abusing its policing authority despite evidence that this happens constantly. The notion exists that the subject of the surveillance would be narrow, confined only to terrorists, in this case, Islamic militants. But the government says it must be able to spy on anyone connected with its suspects, including parties such as innocent family members. The dragnet could expand to include all Muslims, Arabs, or even people who come into close contact with them like a friend, co-worker or neighbor. (Of course, anyone who questions the legality of such a program seems also vulnerable to being watched under the with us or against doctrine.) We have seen abuses like this before with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II or the McCarthy political witch-hunts. All that is necessary is for an aggressive executive branch to make secretive, unsubstantiated claims and worry not about anyone asking questions.

Perhaps most Americans say so what to such a danger. They never fear that they would be investigated because that supposedly only happens to others. But not too long ago, terrorism in America had a different face. In the 1990's terrorism was thoroughly white, Anglo-Saxon and protestant. The most prominent agitators back then were people like Timothy McVeigh, The Branch Dravidian cult in Waco, the Freemen and other rogue right-wing militias, white separatist Randy Weaver and abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph.

A left-leaning Clinton administration made it a priority to combat these elements. At least in the Waco and Randy Weaver situations, the federal government and Attorney General Janet Reno stirred criticism for employing heavy-handed tactics in which children were killed. This is not to condone the Dravidians and Weaver family for illegally stockpiling weapons and shooting at ATF agents. But it would be wrong for the government, in overreacting, to rationalize spying on any American just because they bought a gun or attend a different church service. The new legislation now lets the government do this if it wants.

The force of surveillance falling into the wrong hands, who might then use it for political purposes would destroy the American tradition of protecting individuals against the tyranny of the state. To any conservative who tacitly supports giving President Bush unchecked powers this time around, imagine a potential President Hillary Clinton with the same weapons prosecuting her own agenda. The only way to protect all Americans is to toughen the safeguards against any administration assuming too much control. Any investigative techniques must contain comprehensive judicial, Congressional, press and public oversight.

As far as cameras go, the consensus maintains that there are no legal provisions of privacy in the public sphere. But imagine that the war on terror ended tomorrow. The cameras would not come down. They won't ever come down. They would have to be aimed at something else to justify their existence. They could help catch criminals, yes, but also harass people expressing their freedoms of speech and assembly. With facial recognition technology, the government could monitor a person's movements anywhere outside, storing details of their activity in a file for future use.

Remember that the FBI during the 1960's kept secret files on political opponents of both Republican and Democratic administrations, including on civil rights leaders and college students attending peace rallies. Even Martin Luther King Jr. was the subject of a probe.

What has separated the United States from its enemies is that our government has never been allowed to come close to the sort of omnipresence enjoyed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. And while the British might choose to employ cameras, remember why America fought its war of independence against the U.K. Our personal freedom is more valuable than anything the terrorists could ever destroy. But don't trust a government with its own agenda to always protect it either.

Actually, if you do, then I have a bridge I want to sell you. It's in Brooklyn. It's soon to be littered with security cameras that tell you who is driving on it, and where they plan to go after crossing so you can find them at any time.