Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, and Ray Bradbury
long ago explained how the system would work once those in authority got their
act together and the technology to spy on us all.
On the web,
Or on the phone,
One thing’s sure:
You’re not alone.
Or on the phone,
One thing’s sure:
You’re not alone.
In my own malcontent
civic organization, Veterans For Peace, we’ve always known we were being
watched. We are, after all, against war. And we’re impolite enough about it to
hold up signs.
And why not? Aldous
Huxley, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, and Ray Bradbury long ago explained how the
system would work once those in authority got their act together and the
technology to snoop on us all.
Needless to say, there
are many other democracy-infatuated groups like ours that suffer similar spying
and harassment. It makes little difference who’s in power at the moment. Power
is power, and those who hold it want to keep it.
Now it turns out that
we dissenters needn’t have been quite so proud of all that snooping. As Edward
Snowden — America’s latest whistleblowing superhero — has just divulged, the
FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) have been spying on everybody, not
just us.
And we Veterans For
Peace thought we were special! But it turns out that the authorities have been
logging your calls as well. And scanning your email for keywords. And recording
your personal movements.
None of us knew about
it until Snowden blew a whistle.
Previously, you might
have naively expected that your privacy was somehow protected by the
Fourth Amendment. You know: freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures
and all that. Nice try.
The NSA gave some
thought to the Bill of Rights. Then the agency decided that reevaluating its
spy program wasn’t really necessary. It’s much easier to reevaluate the
Fourth Amendment instead.
The government
essentially did that in 1978, when it created the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). This sneaky law created a special secret court to
approve otherwise illegal spying on citizens when national security was at
stake.
It sounds like a
kangaroo court. Last year, there were 1,789 requests for permission to spy
— all were granted. In 2011, there were 1,676 requests, and
guess what? All of those were granted too.
Subsequent additions
to the law have further broadened the government’s reach. Unfortunately, all
those covered activities are still secret.
Thus, it’s all but
impossible to challenge any of them because we aren’t entitled to the necessary
information to find out which things the government’s doing that might be
objectionable. Huh?
Anyway that’s pretty much what the Supreme Court confirmed back in February.
Meanwhile, the
authorities are drilling more peepholes into our private lives.
Nationwide, cameras
and recording devices are popping up in public places to capture your comments
and to place your whereabouts on record for posterity. Those cameras at
intersections meant to snitch if you run a red light have more than one
purpose, you know. They record your location forever, as does your car’s GPS.
And most cell phones. You want privacy? Maybe you should move to Burkina Faso.
All this surveillance
is naturally aimed at protecting us from terrorists. Really?
The FBI has, as
expected, trotted out a dozen cases where a holocaust would surely have
befallen the land had our sleuths not been illegally spying on us all. Maybe
so, but there’s no way to fact-check such claims.
Everything is too
secret.
OtherWords columnist
William A. Collins is a former state representative, a former mayor of Norwalk,
Connecticut, and a former member of the Veterans For Peace board. otherwords.org
