"Computer is my friend"
Dec. 15th, 2005 23:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillOkay, it is going a little far to break out the quotes from "1984", but this is disturbing.
President Bush secretly gave the NSA power to spy on international communications involving Americans.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the general structure of the intelligence community in our country, the NSA is the agency which monitors international communications. They filter huge amounts of information every day with pattern-recognition software, hunting for specific words and phrases which might indicate a threat to the U.S. If they find anything, they hand it over to someone else -- usually the CIA -- for action.
They are restricted in what they can monitor when it involves Americans, however. Domestic spying is expressly prohibited, and even communications with a foreign national were to be terminated once it was determined that an American was on the line. Until now.
I just had rather a long debate with someone over this, where he tried to say that it was justified to have automated processing of international communications based in the U.S. just as they run on those abroad, even if there's an American involved. I call bullshit. He, and others, have been nattering on about how it's justified now, how the government's gotta do what it's gotta do because don't you know there's a war on? Do you want another 9/11?
All I can think about right now is Men In Black. "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet." There's always a threat out there. The fact that the threat exists, or that the public has been made more aware of one (whether it is more severe than usual or not) does not mean that the government has the right to trample my rights, no matter how "noble" its cause may seem to be. "Oh, international calls, international email, it's no big deal, they're only flagging 'bad stuff', they're not tapping our phone calls to mom..." I have no idea what they're flagging, and neither do you. The point is we are not allowed to know what is being collected or how it is used. This is why boundaries need to be set and maintained, so that rights can be preserved without resorting to a case-by-case basis.
Automated systems for analyzing data are all well and good, but one cannot lose sight of the fact that it is human beings who operate and program that system. You can argue that the NSA people are good, intelligent people, or even that they have no wish to hear about who's picking up the kids or whether your car is out of the shop. And I tell you, it doesn't matter. It's not that I know that these are not decent people, it's that I don't know that they are. Go ahead and assume that the surveillance is professional and all business; I'll be looking up J. Edgar Hoover in my encyclopedia.
Abuse of surveillance has happened, it can happen, and I have to rely on my rights as a citizen to ensure that it does not happen again. Granting the NSA the power to eavesdrop without warrants on international communications by Americans goes against its purpose; it's a bending of the rules, and it just makes me think about the next bending of the rules, the one that allows secret warrantless eavesdropping on domestic communications.
It seems like a small thing. Let me tell you: they're all small things.
I'm not a crusader for personal privacy rights. I'm not one of those people who believes the federal government should be gutted and replaced by the state or even no regulatory body. I'm a tax-and-spend, pro-welfare Liberal who is happy to have red-light cameras at intersections if it's going to help ticket the battered Ford pickup trying to bash my fender in after the light changes. You won't find me screaming about Big Brother when the census comes around, or when I go to renew my driver's license/ID card.
But when the conservatives -- even the average Republicans out there that I talk to -- swallow something like this without complaint, that's when I know I have to stand up and rant about it. Because if the conservatives have gone so astray as to actually welcome unwarranted, secret surveillance of their private lives by the Federal government, I know that the home guard has fallen. Half of the Libertarian party -- the big-L half -- are lost in anti-tax dreams, and the other half are ready for hippie-commune-style anarchy*. It's up to the rest of us to stand up and protest illegal search and seizure, and the erosion of the right to personal privacy that the Supreme Court has time and again affirmed. Quoting Benjamin Franklin is so cliché, but it's no less true: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
* No offense to the couple of small-l libertarians I know who actually have their heads on straight. The national party has no unified voice, and no influence, because they have no direction and haven't garnered any respect. That means it's up to the individual libertarian to make eir voice heard.
President Bush secretly gave the NSA power to spy on international communications involving Americans.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the general structure of the intelligence community in our country, the NSA is the agency which monitors international communications. They filter huge amounts of information every day with pattern-recognition software, hunting for specific words and phrases which might indicate a threat to the U.S. If they find anything, they hand it over to someone else -- usually the CIA -- for action.
They are restricted in what they can monitor when it involves Americans, however. Domestic spying is expressly prohibited, and even communications with a foreign national were to be terminated once it was determined that an American was on the line. Until now.
I just had rather a long debate with someone over this, where he tried to say that it was justified to have automated processing of international communications based in the U.S. just as they run on those abroad, even if there's an American involved. I call bullshit. He, and others, have been nattering on about how it's justified now, how the government's gotta do what it's gotta do because don't you know there's a war on? Do you want another 9/11?
All I can think about right now is Men In Black. "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet." There's always a threat out there. The fact that the threat exists, or that the public has been made more aware of one (whether it is more severe than usual or not) does not mean that the government has the right to trample my rights, no matter how "noble" its cause may seem to be. "Oh, international calls, international email, it's no big deal, they're only flagging 'bad stuff', they're not tapping our phone calls to mom..." I have no idea what they're flagging, and neither do you. The point is we are not allowed to know what is being collected or how it is used. This is why boundaries need to be set and maintained, so that rights can be preserved without resorting to a case-by-case basis.
Automated systems for analyzing data are all well and good, but one cannot lose sight of the fact that it is human beings who operate and program that system. You can argue that the NSA people are good, intelligent people, or even that they have no wish to hear about who's picking up the kids or whether your car is out of the shop. And I tell you, it doesn't matter. It's not that I know that these are not decent people, it's that I don't know that they are. Go ahead and assume that the surveillance is professional and all business; I'll be looking up J. Edgar Hoover in my encyclopedia.
Abuse of surveillance has happened, it can happen, and I have to rely on my rights as a citizen to ensure that it does not happen again. Granting the NSA the power to eavesdrop without warrants on international communications by Americans goes against its purpose; it's a bending of the rules, and it just makes me think about the next bending of the rules, the one that allows secret warrantless eavesdropping on domestic communications.
It seems like a small thing. Let me tell you: they're all small things.
I'm not a crusader for personal privacy rights. I'm not one of those people who believes the federal government should be gutted and replaced by the state or even no regulatory body. I'm a tax-and-spend, pro-welfare Liberal who is happy to have red-light cameras at intersections if it's going to help ticket the battered Ford pickup trying to bash my fender in after the light changes. You won't find me screaming about Big Brother when the census comes around, or when I go to renew my driver's license/ID card.
But when the conservatives -- even the average Republicans out there that I talk to -- swallow something like this without complaint, that's when I know I have to stand up and rant about it. Because if the conservatives have gone so astray as to actually welcome unwarranted, secret surveillance of their private lives by the Federal government, I know that the home guard has fallen. Half of the Libertarian party -- the big-L half -- are lost in anti-tax dreams, and the other half are ready for hippie-commune-style anarchy*. It's up to the rest of us to stand up and protest illegal search and seizure, and the erosion of the right to personal privacy that the Supreme Court has time and again affirmed. Quoting Benjamin Franklin is so cliché, but it's no less true: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
* No offense to the couple of small-l libertarians I know who actually have their heads on straight. The national party has no unified voice, and no influence, because they have no direction and haven't garnered any respect. That means it's up to the individual libertarian to make eir voice heard.
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Spying on Americans is bad!
Date: 2005-12-16 09:22 (UTC)I say we give up NOTHING, especially when it involves our civil liberties. The people that will stop the terrorists should not only be the CIA, NSA, or any other United States intelligence. It starts with you and me, and actually paying attention to what is going on around us.
So justifying the infringements upon the many because of the few? Yeah, I'm with you, Alison. I say BS.
YT
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 13:57 (UTC)(Actual meaningful discussion coming later, after I finish my finals.)