Via Avedon, looks like the LA Times has been pulled into the frog-in-boiling-water effect and is insufficiently alarmed about the possibilities when the government starts looking for inroads to spy on its citizens.
The White House and House Democrats are needlessly fixated on retroactive immunity. The administration, echoed by House Republican leaders, warns darkly that the lack of immunity for past cooperation by telecoms will deter the companies from cooperating in the future; yet both versions (properly) make it clear that companies that comply with lawful orders in the future have nothing to fear. For their part, House Democrats overstate the usefulness of private litigation as a way to pry loose information about the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The Democrats’ opposition to immunity may have made sense as a bluff to induce the administration to provide Congress with documents relating to the program, as it belatedly has begun to do. But the possibility that private lawsuits would expose internal deliberations about the origins of the program was always slight. That sort of disclosure is even less likely after the Supreme Court refused this week to reinstate a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the NSA on behalf of lawyers, journalists and academics who claimed they were harmed by the surveillance program.
I agree with Avedon that there’s this peculiar amnesia going on with this whole discussion. I find myself giving into the urge to be dismissive about what the government could and probably is discovering through spying. But history shows that once they open the door to one kind of information-gathering, it will snowball quickly into feeling they need to know everything about you, especially if you’re perceived as hostile to the powers that be. And most of you reading this are. Avedon suggests some stuff that the government might be looking to find to hold against you, and it’s not just evidence of law-breaking.
Some people have been prosecuted for child abuse and child porn merely for having taken ordinary photographs of their young children in the bathtub, for example - and life just isn’t the same after something like that. And many otherwise law-abiding citizens may have a bit of weed in a pretty box on the coffee table when the police “accidentally” break their door down (which is what the drug laws are for). Just about everyone has said something embarrassingly soppy or icky or kinky to a loved one that they’d never want anyone else in the world to hear - and even the most upright and proper statesman can be made to look tawdry and laughable simply by having them quoted on the evening news. (Remember how uncool the super-cool James Coburn ended up sounding once we knew he wrote love letters containing the phrase, “Baby baby baby baby baby”?) Some things are embarrassing, some things would look worse than they are, and some things can be twisted to look bad by a conscienceless political operative. (I’m sure you can think of a few.) And that’s why you don’t want an administration to be able to spy on you - because yes you do have something to hide, even if it’s not necessarily illegal.
Exactly. With that in mind, I highly recommend this article in Wired about the German government’s research into how to efficiently reorder the mountains of paperwork collected by the Stasi. The article is cool on 15 different levels, but the relevant information for this discussion is what the Stasi felt it needed to know and record for use against its own citizens.
The pages amounted to a minute-by-minute account of Poppe’s life, seen from an unimaginable array of angles. Video cameras were installed in the apartment across the street. Her friends’ bedrooms were bugged and their conversations about her added to the file. Agents investigated the political leanings of her classmates from middle school and opened all of her mail. “They really tried to capture everything,” she says. “Most of it was just junk.”….
She even tracked down the Stasi officer who managed her case, and after she set up a sort of ambush for him at a bar — he thought he was there for a job interview — they continued to get together. Over the course of half a dozen meetings, they talked about what she found in her files, why the Stasi was watching her, what they thought she was doing. For months, it turned out, an agent was assigned to steal her baby stroller and covertly let the air out of her bicycle tires when she went grocery shopping with her two toddlers. “If I had told anyone at the time that the Stasi was giving me flat tires, they would have laughed at me,” she says. “It was a way to discredit people, make them seem crazy. I doubted my own sanity sometimes.” Eventually, the officer broke off contact, but continued to telephone Poppe — often drunk, often late at night, sometimes complaining about his failing marriage. He eventually committed suicide.
In other words, we don’t have to guess at how crazy it can get once the government has given itself wide authority to spy on citizens and has protected itself from accountability. We have a large historical record of just what happens, and it’s stuff like this—letting the air out of someone’s tires a little every day or other such methods of trying to drive them crazy. Or like Avedon says, leaking out of context communications that are the dictionary definition of private to the public to embarrass an activist.
30 Responses to “But don’t we live in a world free from historical evidence of the lows reached by a police state?”
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On the other hand, once a Democrat is in the White House, the press will discover, to their unending horror, that the government is spying on American citizens.
“How could such a thing have ever happened?!? Why won’t someone put an end to this?!? Jeb Bush says he’ll put an end to it — can we just put him in office now?!”
I have to say, I have been shocked and amazed at the reactions many of my fellow Americans to the incredible intrusions on our privacy.
I know staunchly left-wing people who become enthusiastic supporters of the police state when asked about domestic spying and torture (anything to stop those terrists!). People whose closets are filled to overflowing with skeletons of one kind or another, whose careers, relationships, and public persona are in jeopardy if the wrong information gets out, but who are unable to see that spying is a weapon that is pointed at us all.
This is a populace which has gone from paranoia about the Clinton-controlled government and loss of freedoms and privacy, upset over Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma, to meek acceptance of actual instances of crime regarding domestic spying, illegal arrests and detainment, use of torture for “gathering evidence”, etc., as if Big Brother is just a normal part of everyday life.
What in the fuck is wrong with you people? Did you remember ANYTHING from your American History classes? Do you have any idea how hard the founders of this nation fought to secure the very freedoms you are now casually throwing away?
One (bad) attack occurs on American soil, and the Smirking Idiot and his conniving Emperor Palpatine sidekick are now to be given all power, to be used any way they see fit, with no oversight, no accountability, and no consequences - WTF?
I know you think that somehow this will stop the Big Bad Arab Boogeyman from killing you and family in their beds, but you are naive if you believe these powers will not be primarily used against us, instead of the “enemy”.
All you who quietly acquiesce to these intrusions, remember: Prisons hold white American Christians just as easily as brown foreign Muslims…
Exactly. A healthy democracy fosters open govt and citizens’ privacy == not the other way around.
BushCo — Bush and Rove got their start in the Nixon era — have been working since then to make this a One Party RNC land for perpetuity.
Just install enough of a fake opposition to give the illusion of elections and representation, but with none of the social signs of such once the ballots are “counted”.
So sorry to see that the Obama message of “unity” isn’t seen as more dangerous than it is.
And the real problem is that power, once ceded, is nearly impossible to regain. I never understood why right-wingers, who are often the most paranoid when it comes to government power, were so willing to turn things over to Bush. I’d ask them, how would you feel about Hillary Clinton having these powers (since she’s their biggest boogeywoman ever), and they never had an answer, I suppose because they were too limited to understand that, yes, a person who is your ideological opposite might be in charge one day and use that power against you.
Obama voted against FISA. He’s introduced bills to increase transparency in government - tracking who makes various amendments to bills and making the information available on line; ending no-bid contracts. Arguably his greatest acheivement was in Illinois, where he pushed through legislation to require the videotaping of interrogations (for which he got unitiy - it was passed unanimously and signed by a governor who had originally spoken out against it). I’ve got some problems with Obama, but I don’t see any reason to take issue with his record on civil liberties.
AnonyKate just upstream:
If he can reveal, ahead of election day, how he will get lockstepping, corrupt-admin protecting Repugs who have circled their wagons around the shredding of inalienable human rights, I’m all ears.
Meanwhile, 4th amendment related is the SCOTUS development:
I never understood why right-wingers, who are often the most paranoid when it comes to government power, were so willing to turn things over to Bush.
Because they’re only paranoid that the “wrong” government will find out what they’re doing. If it’s the “right” government that approves of what they’re doing and will support them even if they’re exposed, they’ve got no problem with domestic spying. In fact, they think the government should do even more of it so they can discredit their enemies, like those evil war-hating apostate bastard Quakers.
“If it’s the “right” government that approves of what they’re doing and will support them even if they’re exposed, they’ve got no problem with domestic spying.”
How childish do you have to be to believe a weapon that strong will never be used against you and and your gun-owning, Turner Diaries-reading, non-white American hating ass?
The guys with the guns think they’ll never be targeted.
In reality, after they round up the intellectuals, the leftists, liberals, brown people, non-christians, people who don’t wear flag pins, people who wear glasses, etc., they’ll get the people with guns, have no fear…
I’m hoping someone with better research skills than mine will take a look at the LA Times ownership and board structure.
I have to wonder if some of the power players behind the scenes are also influential figures in the teleco’s. Interlocking boards of directors can be a powerful influence on how things get done.
MikeEss, your blog-fu is poweful today.
Why do you think the goon squads take out the pen-wielding critics first? Because their weapon of choice has been shown, historically, to be mightier than the sword.
Taking down people who wave swords and guns? Pshaw … piece of cake.
The amazing thing about the Founders is that they seem to have understood this lesson. I believe that the Constitution was written with a clear understanding that power corrupts, and that abuse of power is tyranny, regardless of whether it’s your ally or your enemy abusing it.
Humans have always been terrible at understanding that fact. My mind still boggles that anybody ever managed to compose a government document designed to keep absolute power in check, however imperfectly.
“Ferengi workers don’t want to stop the exploitation, they want to find a way to become the exploiters.”
MikeEss:
I know staunchly left-wing people who become enthusiastic supporters of the police state when asked about domestic spying and torture (anything to stop those terrists!).
You keep using this word, “staunchly left-wing”… I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, though, I know the people you’re talking about: people who describe themselves as “super liberal”, but who, when questioned on any substantive issue, reveal themselves to be proto-fascists. They’ll talk about how the government needs to spy on everybody, and we need to take the fight to the terrorists in Iraq, and they’re of course not racist but come on, obviously it’s ridiculous that white people sometimes get searched getting on a place when there are Arab-looking people not getting searched.
When you call them on their hard-right positions, they respond by repeating the mantra that no, they’re super liberal, but that even a liberal understands why these things are true and necessary. And why not? They point to “liberal” sources like the New York Times and CNN for support for this proto-fascism.
I assume this is Hillary Clinton’s main constituency.
“Why do you think the goon squads take out the pen-wielding critics first? Because their weapon of choice has been shown, historically, to be mightier than the sword.”
I wonder if the keyboard is mightier than the sword. I hope so, but it’s also a great way to mark yourself for disciplinary action…
“My mind still boggles that anybody ever managed to compose a government document designed to keep absolute power in check, however imperfectly.”
Hard experience, in people who are not prone to be frightened, or to govern based on spreading fear, has a wonderful way of sharpening your resolve.
But in people who are more likely to worship authoritarians than to despise them?…well, welcome to America v2.0…
Here’s G’s theory, which I think is correct:
For at least a couple of decades now, the mantra from the Republicans has that liberals/Democrats/enemy of the day want to raise your taxes and take away your guns, and they promise never to do that.
Which means, of course, that they can do ANY OTHER FUCKING THING THEY WANT and their base will be happy, because they didn’t raise their taxes or take away their guns just like they promised, so clearly they’re honest people. Domestic spying? Random arrests? Hey, they never promised to not do those things, so why get all bent out of shape over it?
An interesting coincidence: I saw “The Lives of Others” last night, which is about a Stassi officer in the last years of the GDR. Awesome movie.
“Seriously, though, I know the people you’re talking about: people who describe themselves as “super liberal”, but who, when questioned on any substantive issue, reveal themselves to be proto-fascists.”
One of my good friends is a Black woman who knows first-hand what government oppression is all about. She has voted Democratic for years, although as she made more money, I would hear more and more references to tax cuts, etc.
When the Abu Graib stuff came out, and then evidence of torture from Gitmo, etc., her fear overwhelmed her knowledge/experience of oppression. She basically had a “fuck the fucking terrorists” attitude, which was surprising to me.
I used to wonder (sorry, but Godwin coming…) how a country like Germany could lose its collective mind and allow fascism to grow and thrive, and be welcomed with open arms.
After the last 7-years, I don’t wonder any more…
“Which means, of course, that they can do ANY OTHER FUCKING THING THEY WANT and their base will be happy, because they didn’t raise their taxes or take away their guns just like they promised, so clearly they’re honest people.”
This is apparently the Reichwing definition of “character”…
One of Obama’s first successes in the US Senate was getting an ethics reform bill passed with Tom Coburn as a sponsor. Now, Obama’s not going to get wingnuts like Coburn with him on every piece of legislation, but the fact that Obama got him on any legislation is a testament to his ability to get people to work with him.
Incertus @ 1:40
I don’t doubt BO’s sincerity, or ability to get one Repug here or there to work with him.
I’m talking about the wagon-circling locksteppers and Obama’s new RNC BFFs who’ll participate in ruses like super-promising with a cherry on top to Charlie Brown that the football won’t be swiped away this time.
It’s just dumb or arrogant to assume that his smiling, engaging honest ways will change politics. (Frankly, I don’t care which it is … I just don’t think he can do it based on his brief record in the Senate.)
quite a few years ago, as part of a psych course on human aggression, I read
this book, called “The Roots of Evil”. It explores the cultural, political & psychological conditions that set the stage for genocides and other major collective evils. I remember at the time (mid-90’s) ticking off the characteristics as I compared them to our American condition, and I felt comforted that while we did meet a few of them, there were several others that were notably absent in our society (e.g., lack of a free independent press).
When I go home tonight, I’m going to find that book in my library and see how we stack up NOW. I have a feeling I won’t be as comforted as I was back then.
We Americans don’t have to look so far afield as the DDR. Google “J. Edgar Hoover” for lots of fun examples of what happens when govt surveillance runs amok…
We have been down this road before - “There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!” - but we suffer from continual amnesia as a nation.
It’s not amnesia if you never learn it in the first place, bellatrys, and my discussions with my poetry and drama students about contemporary US history tells me that they’re not learning it in the first place. My discussions of 20th century literature often sound more like a history class than a literature class, because they don’t have the necessary background to be able to understand why these authors were writing what they were writing about. And these are college kids–think about what those people who didn’t make it this far know about post WWII America.
“My discussions of 20th century literature often sound more like a history class than a literature class, because they don’t have the necessary background to be able to understand why these authors were writing what they were writing about.”
We’re screwed.
Who controls the past, controls the future. And if you’ve never studied the past, you’re in no position to separate the bullshit from the facts…
I asked my students recently about their US history classes, and nearly every one of them said they got to WWII, and that was about it. Maybe a week or two at the end of the year on everything that’s happened since then, and that’s just a cursory look. Forget about actually knowing about McCarthy or Hoover or the CIA’s involvement in toppling governments around the world. Forget about Vietnam or the Pentagon Papers or Watergate or Iran Contra–they’re not even getting to it. I think we’re at the point where we need to make US History a two year course, because there’s just too much to cover, and Civics should be an integral part of the course.
The War on Drugs has been a major facilitator of this slide. Thanks to the WoD there have been all sorts of exceptions carved out of the Bill of Rights, from warrantless searches (did you know that the cops can surveil your house in the Infrared looking for signs of pot growing without a warrant?) to absurdities like civil forfeiture. The surveillance state coupled with these attacks on due process makes for a powerful weapon.
agreed, but there’s always something that the government tries to get people so afraid of that they’ll give up their freedoms. Let’s see, in recent decades, it’s been…
Communists
Drugs
Pedophiles
Terrorists
and next…?
I feel like the issue is less about the object of the fear-mongering, than it is about understanding how/why people get so swayed by fear in the first place. It makes me so sad and frustrated, how easy it is to lead people into agreement with just about anything if you make them scared enough, and I don’t know how we can overcome this tendency. To tie into some above posts, I do think part of the problem is a total lack of knowledge regarding historical lessons of the disastrous results of being a population ruled by fear. So perhaps a better understanding of history would help a bit.
Oh? You mean the time he took on the assembled Illinois police departments and made them do it HIS way on videotaping suspects?
It may have also made sense from the “laws actually mean something” perspective.
God, that editorial is just awful
FISA laws already include good-faith exceptions, and why does law enforcement have to compromise with criminals exactly?
I cover this stuff a lot at my blog. (Shameless whoring) These types of editorials are produced daily and they never make any fucking sense whatsoever.
The LA Times is owned by the Tribune company, which among many things has had associations with Rumsfeld.
“Currently Rumsfeld is chairman of the board of directors of Gilead Sciences, Inc. He also serves as a member of the boards of directors of ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) Ltd., Tribune Company and RAND Corporation. He is currently chairman of the Salomon Smith Barney International Advisory Board.” *from 2000, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/28/politics/main260175.shtml
http://www.gilead.com/pr_933190157
The Chairman and CEO is Samuel Zell,
whose campaign contributions you can see here
http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/Sam_Zell.php
sorry if it is a bit much.