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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Sacrifice Liberty For Security? Not Without a Fight

by Jay Bookman for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

May 15, 2006

This is supposed to be America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. But I'm beginning to have my doubts, about the free part and the brave part, too. This America, this increasingly strange America, is looking more and more like the land of the cowed and the home of the silent. In this America, we have a military agency, the National Security Agency, secretly tracking and analyzing every phone call or e-mail that is sent or received by hundreds of millions of American citizens, with records of all of those calls retained forever. And in this America, millions and millions of people profess to be quite comfortable living under a government that wants to know who every one of us is talking to, and has the technology to realize that ambition.

It will keep us safe, some Americans have responded. Only those with something to hide should be worried, others have said. But then again, we all have something to hide, don't we? My something may be different than your something, but we all have something we would rather keep to ourselves — the things we read or watch, the things we do or think or buy, the people we talk with or the Web sites we visit. . . .

Admittedly, there is a reason for that willingness to let government vastly expand its oversight of our lives, and that reason is fear of terrorism. But there is always a reason, isn't there? There is always some threat to security that is said to justify the surrender of liberty to government. In every nation that has ever lost freedom to government, there has always been a reason. There was a reason that the soldiers of King George III burst into the homes of colonial Americans without warrants or reasonable cause. And back then, there were also those who saw nothing wrong with that practice, who believed that only those who had done something wrong had anything to fear.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers thought otherwise, enshrining that belief in the Bill of Rights to guarantee that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." In Stalin's Soviet Union, they had a reason for government monitoring — fear of capitalist imperialists. In today's China and North Korea, they have a reason as well. In George Orwell's "1984," the reason was the threat from Eastasia or Eurasia. "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment," Orwell wrote. "How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time."

But a strong people, a free people intent on remaining free, does not accept those reasons as sufficient. They are willing to accept the danger as the price of their liberty. Our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers were such people. We tell ourselves that we today are still that people. We still celebrate ourselves as willing to fight and die for freedom, but the evidence accumulates that we are not. The infinitesimal danger that any one of us might be killed in a terror attack — a danger much smaller than that of getting killed by crossing the street — is enough to send too many of us scurrying to toss liberty onto the bonfire in the vain hope that the sacrifice might make us safe.

But this is about more than civil liberties, as precious as they might be. These violations of constitutional rights are made possible because of a still more fundamental problem: The system isn't working; the checks and balances built into government by our Founding Fathers have been dismantled. Congress has passed laws to ensure that any spying on the American people is conducted appropriately and within the Constitution; the executive branch simply proclaims it will not be bound by those laws. Lawsuits have been filed alleging that the spying is illegal and unconstitutional; the executive branch refuses to allow those suits to be heard by the judicial branch, on grounds that the programs are national secrets and not to be questioned. At every turn, it seems, every mechanism to rein in the executive or make it accountable to the people has been frustrated.

Two events of last week demonstrate just how far down this road we have traveled. First, the U.S. Justice Department announced it had been forced to drop its own internal investigation into the legality of warrantless wiretapping. The federal government had refused to give its own lawyers the security clearances needed to conduct such an internal analysis, so the effort had to be abandoned. Then Gen. Michael Hayden, the president's nominee as CIA director, told members of the Senate that he might be open to allowing debate on legalizing warrantless wiretapping, an ongoing practice that violates federal law. "I'm willing to consider trying to bring the NSA wiretap program, as it exists now, under federal law," Hayden was paraphased as saying by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois who cited the statement as an encouraging sign of compromise. Think about that. A government official says he might be open to allowing Congress to debate such things. More chilling still, the much-abused Congress is pleased by that new "flexibility."

And the compromise in question? Congress would be allowed to legalize what the executive branch has already decided to do anyway. We need to have a fight about all this. It won't be pleasant, it won't be fun, but we need to hash it all out in a down and dirty political brouhaha. As the party in opposition, the Democrats need to lead that fight using every tool at their disposal. It may be that today's Democrats lack the guts for such a battle. If so, then they also lack the guts to lead this country, and I fear to think where that would leave us, forced to choose between one party with no courage and another with no brains or perspective. But if we have that fight, and if at the end our craving for security proves stronger than our love of liberty, I guess I would want to know that, bitter as that knowledge would be. At least then it would be clear where this nation stands, or more accurately, where it cowers.

13 comments:

goal10der said...

I'm so on the fence on this one because I'm one of those people who feels they have nothing to hide. BUT, I am also critical of our government, so maybe I should have something to hide!

I also think that many Americans are indifferent to their government because they feel they cannot change anything by themselves and that there is "no one else who feels the same way", which of course, is totally untrue. It's too bad that we'll have to wait almost 2 more full years to see a serious change take effect, until then, we're sort of helpless. Which is how I feel about the government. Never can I remember 4 years seeming like such a long term for a President!

JR said...

What a fine article! Unfortunately, this problem is not just at the federal level, I see it daily up and down the chain of command from towns to counties to states to the federal government. Nobody seems to want to follow the rules / laws, set out to protect our form of government. There are those in government who believe they are above the law, that what they are doing is right and for the greater good so everyone else should just fall in line behind them and not questions anything. When others raise the voice of concern about constitutional violations, corruption in government, they're at the very least poo-pooed as naysayers and unpatriotic, to the very worst, targeted for smear campaigns, discredited, or even threatened. I do believe we can take back our government, I do believe we have the power to change things. We just need to get highly organized and take action. I like what MoveOn.org is doing to organize people to act politically. I'm doing my small part locally to get residents to fight back against local political corruption. Well, I'd better get back to work. *sigh*

CyberKitten said...

I fail to understand how giving up some of my liberties (only on a temporary basis, of course) can make me safer from the supposed 'bad guys'. How can forcing me the carry an ID card make it less likely that a terrorist will kill me - though I guess identifying my remains will be a little easier if the card survives....

Isn't the whole so-called 'war on terror' supposed to be about *protecting* our liberties?

It seems to me that the latest push by various layers of government is about 3 things: power, control and fear. To warrant an increase in power 'they' ramp up the fear levels until we beg them for more control in the vain hope that government will protect us from the latest in a (very) long line of bogey men.

Personally I'm not buying the crap they're trying to feed me... If its a (false) choice between freedom and security - then I'll have my freedoms thank you very much.

Scott said...

Good article, thanks for the post.

Of course I can't picture a Democrat doing much to protect anyones civil liberties, but atleast he got the first 7 paragraphs right.

It's well time we stop asking the Government how many personal rights it will afford us, and start reminding it about it's own limited rights.

CyberKitten said...

MQM said: Some company is making big bucks off these 'technologies', which will eventually come together to form the infrastructure of a police state, just waiting to be exploited by the right people.

That's exactly what's happening over here too...

scott said: It's well time we stop asking the Government how many personal rights it will afford us, and start reminding it about it's own limited rights.

"People should not be afraid of their Government. Government should be afraid of its people".

See... there are things that we agree on. Glad you liked the article. More to come I assure you!

JR said...

I agree the government "ramps up the terror level" to manipulate us into compliance with their goals. Putting more laws and measures in place isn't going to stop criminals. By their very nature, they don't obey those laws anyway. They ignore them or find ways around them. The only people really controlled by laws are the law abiding citizens and last I checked, they weren't a threat to our national security.

Laura said...

It's precisely this kind of bullshit that supports the idea of multi-party political systems. As far as I can tell, if we had more views represented in Congress and more to choose from than Bad and Worse, it would be harder for the executive branch to strong-arm the two parties into compliance.

More people might actually get out and vote too (in the states anyway) if they felt they had a real choice and could maybe make a real difference. RIght now, as it stands, if you oust the current asshole, you'll just end up with a new asshole.

I'm not holding my breath though. I honestly don't know what can possibly break through the apathy of the American public. It seems we feel no ownership of our government anymore.

JR said...

Laura, move in the right circles and you will discover an end to that apathy. Since I've hooked up with various political action groups, I've not only become involved with our local politics as an elections judge, I've also written letters to countless voters, members of Congress and other politicians. I've called voters in other states, I've written letters to t.v. and newspapers raising the alarm when Congress is preparing to do something stupid. I've attended political rallies. There are thousands, maybe millions of people out there, just like you and I, disgusted with politics as usual and wanting change. Was it Ghandi who said, "become the change you wish to see in the world"? I've learned to open my mouth and fight like hell when someone in power professes to speak for me and tries to do something I don't think is good for my community or my country. Now, go to your window, open it, scream "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" ;-) Then go out there and get involved! Often it takes an investment of time, I have election training tonight for three hours, but I figure, it's summer, there's nothing decent on t.v., the housework can wait, and would I really be doing anything else productive if I didn't attend the event? I'm making a change, you can too.

goal10der said...

VV - I enjoyed reading what you said and I agree that getting involved is the way to affect change, but the way I see it is that large companies and private interest groups hold the ears of politicians, the national ones anyway. My point is that to affect change, it appears that we need to have a large cash flow heading in the direction of the people we want to lead us and right now, those people are electing what we have now, as Laura said, "Bad & Worse".

Every four years we hear the same thing, that the 18-28 yr old population is the biggest demographic that could affect change, yet every four years, roughly the same percentage of that demographic votes because they're not interested in politics. They feel it doesn't affect them the way it affects us as we get older, nor do they care who is in power...maybe until now. Hopefully in 2008 we'll see some of the change we wish to see.

CK - you mentioned that the latest push by the government is about power, control and fear. This is actually nothing new, really and the Republicans have been playing those cards as long as I can remember; it's just that now, the stakes have been raised - or we might even say that has been manufactured as well. For comparison, think about the Cold War - power, control and fear of nuclear war.

CyberKitten said...

Thanks for all the comments guys.... I do like a lively discussion.

V V said: The only people really controlled by laws are the law abiding citizens and last I checked, they weren't a threat to our national security.

That's very true. Even if we all gave up our freedoms, carried ID cards etc.. would it make law abiding citizens any safer? I seriously doubt it.

Laura said: Right now, as it stands, if you oust the current asshole, you'll just end up with a new asshole.

That's also very true. I wonder if there is another way. Whoever we vote for we always get a bunch of lying self-serving politicians - even the best ones will screw you over eventually.

V V said: There are thousands, maybe millions of people out there, just like you and I, disgusted with politics as usual and wanting change.

SO much truth...! Just look at the demonstrations against globalisation or the War in Iraq. I think many people care passionately about politics but just hate the political system. Well done V V for getting so involved. The Grass Roots seems to be where it's at...

goal10der said regarding the use of fear for control:

This is actually nothing new, really and the Republicans have been playing those cards as long as I can remember; it's just that now, the stakes have been raised - or we might even say that has been manufactured as well. For comparison, think about the Cold War - power, control and fear of nuclear war.

Indeed. There IS nothing new under the sun. but I think the naked use of fear to manipulate the public has never been more blatent. I lived through the IRA bombing campaign in London in the 1980's and the government never resorted to the cynical manipulation of events it has recently stooped to. It makes me very angry that many people don't care what's going on and are actively avoiding even thinking about it....

Scott said...

The Libertarian part welcomes all of you who are disenfranchised by your political party's ineptitudes.

:)

Laura said...

I have some Libertarian views, but for the most part, my belief that a central role of government is to provide for and take care of its citizens prevents me from going completely Libertarian.

JR said...

One last thing, then I'll shut up. ;-) The money necessary to get good people into office is out there. It's in the pockets of each voter. MoveOn.org has been great about getting voters all over the country to contribute to campaigns of people in other states who are voting the way they want. It's been working for big corporations and religious groups for years, it's about time the individual voters learned how to do it. It's beginning to have a real impact too, but if we don't get enough decent people in office quick enough, I'm sure the folks we're trying to get out of office will close that loophole to us.