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Time to Worry about Eavesdropping
Uncle Sam’s
vast dragnet
by D onald K aul
In 1929, Secre
tary of State Henry
S tim so n
d is
mantled the depart
ment charged with
breaking codes and
learning other na
tio n s '
se cre ts.
Asked why, he said:
"Gentlemen don't read other
gentlemen's mail." Some sources
quote him less elegantly as saying
"each other's mail," but you get the
gist. And boy, have we ever come a
long way.
We still pay lip service to our
"right to privacy," but in reality we
don't have one. When you make a
phone call, send email, buy some
thing online, or arrange for an auto
matic withdrawal from your bank,
you open up your life to people who
would seek to mine it for their own
purposes, good and evil.
Privacy? That's so 20th century.
The latest assault on our private
lives was revealed the other day
when an employee of a private con
tractor revealed that the National
Security Agency is clocking all our
calls and emails — where they're
coming from, where they're
going. The authorities say
widespread snooping is a vi
tal tool in our never-ending
fight against terrorism.
This dragnet has some
people deeply upset. Others,
not so much. It clearly falls
short of the Orwellian night
mare of actual eavesdropping
— so they tell us — but that
dystopian nightmare is only a click
away.
It's time to worry.
The young man who gave away
the game said he did it out of patrio
tism. "The public needs to decide
whether these programs and poli
cies are right or wrong," said Ed
ward Snowden.
President Barack Obama said he
welcomed the debate. Then he sent
his agents out hunting for Snowden,
perhaps to give him the Medal of
Freedom. Not.
The situation is a real curveball
for conservatives. They hate Obama
and live to criticize him. But they
also love national security above
life itself and would never stand in
its way, no matter what. They think
Snowden is a traitor and should be
hanged (if not dismembered).
Liberals are also in a delicate spot.
They're very suspicious of the gi
gantic national security apparatus
we've built and don't like the idea of
the government being able to snoop
on their private conversations.
Progressives wanted Obama to put
an end to that sort of thing, not
expand it.
As a result, many liberals con
sider Snowden a hero, like Daniel
Ellsberg, the fellow who spirited the
Pentagon Papers to the newspa
pers that published them.
E llsb e rg h im s e lf has said
Snowden's leak was even more im
portant than his own. He also lik
ened the vast surveillance opera
tions to the extremes seen in East
Germany, declaring "the so-called
intelligence community has become
the United Stasi of America."
I feel very strongly both ways.
On the one hand, I think the Con
stitution does grant us a right to
privacy. The document may not do
so explicitly, but this right is embed
ded in the right to free speech, free
dom of assembly, religious freedom,
and the freedom from unreasonable
search and seizure. We have a right
to be left alone unless the govern
ment can give us a very good reason
to the contrary.
On the other hand, I have no
desire to get blown up when I go to
my neighborhood coffee shop. I'm
willing to give the government a
good deal of leeway to prevent that.
It's been nearly 12 years since the
9/11 terrorist attacks. We haven't
had a truly major event like it since
and that's probably not an accident.
I think our security forces are doing
something right.
All presidents face this balanc
ing act between freedom and secu
rity. Pretty much all of them, regard
less of ideology, come down on the
side of playing it safe.
I guess I'm OK with that, sort of.
I just wonder where it's all going to
lead. One minute, the government is
tracking your phone calls. The next
minute, you're living in East Ger
many.
OtherWords columnist Donald
Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Mich.
OtherWords. org