Why NSA ‘success’ in foiling terror plots doesn’t justify a police state
As expected, in response to yesterday’s revelation that the NSA doesn’t need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls and that thousands of analysts have this ability, government apologists for the NSA have begun to claim that the program has “helped to foil numerous terror plots.” They’ve even trotted out former Vice President Dick Cheney. (See his quotes below.)
Are Americans going to be hoodwinked by this kind of Orwellian logic? Never mind that the Boston Bombing wasn’t foiled, despite warnings from Russian officials. Assurances of safety and security trump all in the world of President Obama and Senator McCain.
I’m tempted to ask, “Based on this logic, why don’t we place cameras in everyone’s home?” Think of the spousal abuse that would be prevented. Think of all of the child abusers we could nab. And what could be more worthwhile than protecting our children?
On one level, I feel silly using this kind of rhetoric, but how far off is this from tracking and collecting data on (potentially) all Americans? And guess what? There are cameras on most of our phones and on your child’s X-Box, but we won’t get in to that now!
Since the NSA defenders are using liberal arguments, I’ll use one too: The NSA’s budget is classified, of course–just like the FISA court!, but it’s estimated to be between $20-$35 billion dollars. Never mind that, even if domestic terrorism increased by 1000%, you’d be more likely to randomly drown in the neighborhood pool than to be killed by a terrorist. How many actual–rather than hypothetical–lives could be saved if that $30 billion was spent on cancer research or improving roads and bridges?
What’s it gonna be America? The rule of law or the rule of men?
UPDATE:
GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits
Exclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009.
NSA targeted Dmitry Medvedev at London G20 summit
Leaked documents reveal Russian president was spied on during visit, as questions are raised over use of US base in Britain.
Dick Cheney staunchly defended the NSA surveillance programs started under his tenure as Vice President, telling Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that the programs could have stopped 9/11 had they been in effect, and that Edward Snowdenwas a traitor for revealing the information and fleeing to China.
“When you had the hijackers in 9/11, they were in contact with their leadership overseas and the rest of the organization in the States,” Cheney said. “If we had been able to read their mail and intercept communications, and pick up from the calls overseas the numbers here that they were using in the United States, we would then have been able to thwart the attack.”
In contrast to critics like Rand Paul, Cheney believes the government was justified in expanding the scope of surveillance to all phone metadata, even of people not suspected of crimes, claiming that wartime footing allows additional national security measures.
“Congress authorized the president to use military force to deal with the crisis,” Cheney said, referring to the War on Terror. “That puts you in the category of using your military assets, intelligence assets and so forth in order to protect the country against another attack. When you consider somebody smuggling a nuclear device into the United States it becomes very important to gather intelligence on your enemies and stop the attack before it is launched.”
Dick Cheney went on to compare the ‘war on terror’ to World War III. Read the rest and see video here.