Irreal

Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich have an interesting Op-ed in The New York Times entitled End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now. In it they say that they believe the NSA’s collection of telephone call metadata is a clear case of an unconstitutional general warrant of exactly the type that the American Revolution was fought to prevent. They further state that the NSA greatly exaggerates the usefulness of the bulk collection and have been unable or unwilling to provide any evidence of its usefulness despite repeated requests for the evidence by the senators.

They also discuss Senator Feinstein’s reform bill, which they describe as business as usual for the NSA, and go on to contrast their own legislation that would prohibit the government from conducting “backdoor searches” of Americans’ communications such as phone call metadata, emails, text messages, and Internet use.

Sadly, the Senate Intelligence Committee has voted out Feinstein’s bill so we can expect to see little help from the Senate. They will, of course, pretend that they’ve solved the problem while the NSA continues to abuse the rights of American citizens and, indeed, citizens of every other country as well. It’s shameful.

Whenever ordinary folks push back against—or even question—the NSA’s extralegal surveillance of innocent citizens they are always told that it’s to protect them from terrorists. “Don’t let there be another 9/11,” they say. “Really,” they assure us, “it’s for your own good.”

It’s all nonsense, of course, and now the EFF has published an interesting article that puts the lie to those claims. In reality, the EFF says, terrorism is only a narrow aspect of the NSA’s broader activities and interests. Their own talking points memo advises spokesmen to continually invoke 9/11.

In truth, the NSA spends most of its efforts spying on foreign heads of state, foreign businesses, the World Bank, the UN, and just about everything else. You may or may not think that such activities are justified but one thing for sure, there’s a lot more going on than just protecting the world from terrorists.

Just in case those of you in Europe think that you don’t have reason to be as mad as Americans should be, you might want to reconsider.

Just in case you needed more proof of the iron law of data collection, consider this McClatchyDC story about how almost 5000 people had their personal information swept up and shared with nearly 30 federal agencies because they ordered a book.

The book was about how to beat lie detectors and the government was not amused. Apparently they were a little confused about the First Amendment and worried that maybe some of their employees had used the information to beat their employment polygraph tests. Let’s put aside, for the moment, that the diversion techniques—let alone polygraphs themselves—have yet to be proven effective or reliable.

Many of the 4,904 people on the list had nothing to do with the Federal Government so you would think their names would have been deleted and their personal information expunged. Just kidding. Of course you wouldn’t think that and, of course, their information wasn’t deleted. Instead, the government has decided to hold onto it “just in case.” To understand how illegal this probably is, consider the rationale for the Department of Defense’s retention of the data: the DOD Inspector General says that they can retain information on non-DOD personnel “when their activities have directly threatened the functions, property or personnel of the Department of Defense.” When they have to stretch the facts this far, you know you’ve caught them with their hands in the cookie jar—remember, we’re talking about purchasing a perfectly legal book.

There’s little doubt that this data will be further abused and it’s entirely likely that it will find new uses, just as the iron law demands.

Are you angry yet?

How about now?¹