The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Michael Maiello's picture

    Surveillance and Human Rights

    By Michael Maiello on Tue, 07/02/2013 - 11:11pm | Politics

    I'm impressed and a bit surprised to see that The New York Times has become the most consistent progressive voice against the post 9/11 security state.  Today, the Times very gently criticizes U.S. snooping on the private communications of our friends and fellow Earth inhabitants of the European Union, who are our collective largest trading partner and our strategic allies.

    Two items in the op-ed most intrigue me.

    First: "Most European governments presumably have long been aware of the N.S.A.’s capabilities. Ordinary Europeans, however, were unaware, until Der Spiegel published the numbers this week, of just how many private phone calls, e-mails and text messages the N.S.A. now monitors in Europe each month."

    This is a major objection to the whole practice -- elites understand it, the majority does not.  That situation is antithetical to self governance.

    Second: "N.S.A. listening in on ordinary Europeans is perfectly legal under United States law; the agency is prohibited only from snooping on Americans without court authorization. German intelligence agencies are similarly prohibited from spying on Germans. It is naïve to assume that allied intelligence agencies do not share data that may be off limits to one and not the other."

    That means that U.S. laws do not adequately protect U.S. citizens since, if somebody with power divines cause, they can always ask our allies to do the spying for us.  In exchange for... our own intelligence on their citizens of interest.

    So, we have a system with all sorts of internal checks and balances that are thwarted by our external relationships.  Germany's government can't spy on Germans without cause, but ours can and we will do so, if Germany will spy on one of our people who is off limits under our law.

    How is this acceptable?  And...

    "The magazine (Der Spiegel) reported 500 million in Germany alone in a single month. That large number raises suspicions that a lot of N.S.A. snooping has no connection to America’s national security or thwarting terrorists."

    We have been told, time and again, that these extraordinary powers are used only to stop terrorists.  That's clearly not the case.  The metadata that the DOJ collected from AP reporter phone calls had nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with a leak investigation.  The rules are clearly being more than bent.  The privacy and rights of individual Americans have, without much doubt, been compromised.  We should also consider the rights of non-Americans.  The world is more than a collection of teams.  When Snowden tells ordinary Germans that we're reading their emails without consequence an at will, isn't he doing them a favor?

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    I was attempting to just get into definitions Mike.

    I am having real problems understanding all of this.

    1984

    Well, Orwell had a point.

    These extraordinary powers were designed....

    Hell

    Well, what is a terrorist?

    I do not know until he blows up a marathon!

    And the gov will tell you that nobody knows what a terrorist is until he attempts to terrorize?

    Oh but now we are safer?

    The feds will get nothing out of me because I surely do not count.

    If Cheney were in charge I would have gone ballistic, for sure.

    Issa is a fascist and a crook and a felon so he sure the hell aint gonna do anything about all this.

    I am lost on this subject Mike and this subject will never end.

    Well we are the good guys and we are just going after the bad guys.

    To me it is the same argument as the NRA.

    Between the gov and the hackers and the international spying networks and pissed off employees of all of these entities; maybe we find transparancy. 

    That is all I got, for now!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 12:20am

    It wasn't clear to me how you meant the NRA reference, Richard, but I would like to say that all through my reading on the Snowden thing, I have the strong feeling that many N.R.A. fans would definitely be using his leaks about surveillance of U.S. citizens as reason for why the N.R.A. exists and must "hold the line" it does. The N.R.A. fights tooth and nail to have as few government records of gun and ammo ownership as possible, mainly because they very much fear government knowing where guns are, how many there are, or any other information about them or their owners, and even argue against the government being able to access records of gun ownership after a crime has been committed with them.

    Granted, many of the NRA types that are not just libertarian but ultra-conservative would no doubt be pro-surveillance of furrniners of all kinds. Just not 'mercans with guns. Because how are they supposed to protect themselves when the furriners come and the gummint collapses? wink


    by artappraiser on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 2:17am

    Just to clarify; the NRA maintains that only good guys with guns can protect us from bad guys with guns.

    The NSA claims that it must keep track of the bad guys so that we will be safe.

    Who decides who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

    Come to think about it; the entire exercise is rather sexist? hahahaha

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 9:21am

    What line is the NRA 'holding'?

    The line at the mortuary from accidental shootings?

    Or the gun manufacturers bottom line?


    by NCD on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 4:31pm

    Amnesty International filed a lawsuit challenging NSA phone surveillance. The lawsuit was dismissed because the organization could not prove that it had been spied upon. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging phone surveillance in the wake of the Snowden leaks. Verizon admitted that they gave data to the NSA, The ACLU is a Verizon customer and thus may have standing to file suit. As you note, Congress is not capable of dealing with serious issues.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 8:29am

    We should remember that the corporations that are people too can legally store our personal information.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 8:34am

    T-Mobile, one of the 4 main US telcos, is a German company. Presumably its chairman is giving the US the right to intercept all his and his country's communications simply by being born German. This is a nutty baseline to start from.

    Of course your note re: the mutual spying is best exemplified with US-UK relations, sharing the largest amount of data as an end-around to regulations.

    The EU is the world's largest economy, but it's supposed to roll over for cavity searches for the US? Are people even thinking about the situation and all the outdated assumptions & biases involved?


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 5:06am

    "We have been told, time and again, that these extraordinary powers are used only to stop terrorists."  From Senators Udall & Wyden:

    Intelligence officials have noted that the bulk email records program was discussed with both Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In our judgment it is also important to note that intelligence agencies made statements to both Congress and the Court that significantly exaggerated this program’s effectiveness. This experience demonstrates to us that intelligence agencies’ assessments of the usefulness of particular collection programs – even significant ones – are not always accurate. This experience has also led us to be skeptical of claims about the value of the bulk phone records collection program in particular.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 8:45am

    U.N. Sec. Gen. Ban Ki Moon implies Snowden and presumably, others like him, is/are the problem:

    "the Snowden case is something I consider to be misuse." The UN chief added that the opening up of digital communications should not be "misused in such a way as Snowden did".

    He was speaking at an Icelandic parliament committee, and was challenged and answered this way:

    Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the committee who was present at the meeting, asked Ban to clarify his comments on whistleblowers. He replied: "Access can be for the greater good, but sometimes it creates bigger problems through misuse by individuals."

    The Guardian article, by Ed Pilkington, goes on to discuss the U.N.'s own problematic past dealing with whistleblowers.

    All in all, very thought provoking. We really are discussing how the whole world is going to proceed with this developing technology/database-for-everything-by-one-entity-or-another thingie, aren't we?


    by artappraiser on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 3:44pm

    Apparently the US Postal Service has had a surveillance function for US mail addresses and deliveries for a century or so, it is considered similar legally to the NSA program on phone numbers/email addresses:

    ...Together, the two programs show that snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.

    The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. At the request of law enforcement officials, postal workers record information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered....


    by NCD on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 4:35pm

    Jill Lepore wrote an interesting historical prospective of how technology outpaces privacy.She begins with the British government opening mail in 1844.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 5:06pm

    'A barbarian breach of honor', mail surveillance, by the bloody British in 1844.....what else would one expect from the reckless empire mad arsonists of the War of 1812?

    The USPS business above has me concerned now that even a picture postcard is no longer private. Must I learn the Navajo language and talk in code, and who with, as my relatives are not Navajo?


    by NCD on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 5:30pm

           "The world is more than a collection of teams." This is ironic because it's pretty much only during The World Cups when I feel good about rooting for the USA on a world stage.       


    by kyle flynn on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 5:25pm