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"We are in the midst of a critically important debate about the proper scope of the government's surveillance authority. This debate should not take place in a vacuum.
The public has a right to know, at least in general terms, what kinds of surveillance the court authorized and what kinds of surveillance it disallowed."
Jameel Jaffer, ACLU
“…the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”Dick Cheney’s former Legal Counsel David Addington, in reference to legal questions about another Administration decision re: wiretapping, from the Raw Story blog.
This week, I’m writing about privacy: that of the wired kind, and that of the sexual kind (vis Larry Craig). Those of us who publish online can be a bit flip about privacy, but the truth is, if we use many of the most common media today, our conversations are open for business. Recently, everyone I meet is discussing their companies’ new policies for online auditing of new hires (what are you sucking on in that Facebook photo, Missy?). And we all Google everyone we meet before we meet them, or deem them dateable. My best friend’s ex even blogged about a first date, very quickly after he broke up with my friend. And I will never recover from the Tommy Lee and Pam video.
But clearly, social media is not all fun and games. It’s too powerful for that. The same power that lets silly little me connect instantly facilitates terrorists and violence-causing non-state actors.
And it’s hard for me to side wholeheartedly with the ACLU and colleagues who object to Government surveillance of new media, because God forbid such surveillance catches the next major terrorist plotters on their cell phones. But the lines are so fuzzy now. I think any illusions of our privacy online are ill placed. In my graduate school program I meet journalists whose countries physically and financially punished them for speaking out against ruling parties. It’s easy to think, that would never happen here, but our networked world means one woman’s blog could be another man’s plotting ground.
The Bush-Cheney administration had been working for some time to relax FISA Court and other laws in favor of broader powers to conduct surveillance. Throughout, those who have contested increased surveillance get rebukes like this, from Cheney’s Legal Counsel Addington: “the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”
This attitude frames why, in August 2007, the Democrats in Congress caved in to Bush Administration demands to re-fashion FISA, and why some bloggers today have been discussing an article in the American Prospect, in which the reporter asks, "Why wasn't there greater mobilization against the warrantless surveillance bill passed earlier this month?”
"Caroline Fredrickson, the legislative director of the ACLU, is still fuming over the way Democrats reneged on reassurances she says they offered in late July to liberal groups -- particularly at a key meeting on July 20 -- that they wouldn't move any major revisions to the current FISA law before getting the answers they sought about the current warrantless wiretapping program.
"They turned around and screwed us over -- and the Constitution -- all at once," she says of the fast-moving FISA legislation that left the ACLU and other groups scrambling to stop it.”
I liked this comment, which sums up why Democrats, and many Americans, are loath to stop warrentless wiretapping, et al:
“The blame, of course, rests solely on the shoulders of "the sheep" who once again capitulated to the classic fear-mongering tactic employed by the administration. The old reliable "if hundreds of thousands die in an attack during the August recess, then it will be on the Democrat's head". Scream that one out and they fold every time. I'm sure Karl Rove was positively beaming.”
As usual, Republicans win the war of words. If a legislator favors cutting funding for Iraq spending, they are labeled “against the troops.” If a legislator, or citizen, for that matter, expresses concern over electronic surveillance, “the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”
Never one for conspiracy theories, I’ve been diving into the WIRED blogs for accounts of electronic surveillance. A must-read is this WIRED piece on the symbiotic relationship between telecoms and the FBI.
"The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to
