I don’t usually go super
political on here, but with the recent revelations concerning the NSA’s
activities, as well as all the legal issues starting to arise from them, I feel
a need to voice my opinions. Like everyone else, I have a lot of concern over the surveillance programs run by the
NSA. At the very least, they are so
broad that they vastly overreach, and some of them at worst are clear
violations of domestic law, the United States Constitution and international
laws and treaties. The response I often
hear is that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, that
they are doing this only to keep the country safe from terrorism. While I agree that their motive is not
inherently bad, their execution has been.
But I see a problem far beyond the flagrant violation of laws and
treaties, and I’m as disturbed by it as I am that no one has mentioned it
yet. The problem I see is that this
spying is creating an atmosphere of distrust that we haven’t seen since the
cold war. As a result, all that we have
worked for since World War I is in danger of being lost.
In recent months, we have
learned a great deal about just what the NSA is doing, largely through the tens
of thousands of pages leaked by Edward Snowden.
While I don’t condone his actions, I don’t condemn them either because
he was trying to bring attention to what he believed were brazenly illegal actions. The legality of said actions is beyond the
scope of this post, but the content and motive behind them is what needs to be
paid attention to. Now, much of what was
revealed was not actually that shocking, at least to me. I’d known since the Patriot Act was passed (I
will refrain from opining on this law, suffice it to say that I consider it one
of the worst pieces of legislation in my lifetime) that much of our digital communications
were being collected and read. We have
engaged in a great deal of international surveillance as well, such as
wiretapping the phones of those making international calls to certain areas and
monitoring international emails. In
recent weeks, it came out that this went beyond ordinary citizens, all the way
up to world leaders, such as the chancellor of Germany.
Now, spying on foreign
neighbors is certainly nothing new. Frankly,
we’ve been spying on one another for as long as societies have existed. But look at the way we have related to one
another as a result of such activity.
There is always some degree of mistrust which, when combined with our
apparently natural lust for things we can’t have, often leads to varying
degrees of fighting. Virtually every war
ever waged has been born of some combination of these factors, not to mention
the nasty assumption that we’re right and everyone else is wrong. But we can’t keep living this way, especially
if we want to be civilized as we claim to be, because we will never have a
unified world if we do not stop with this distrust.
Given the horrible things
countries have done to each other over the centuries, we do seem to have reason
to mistrust each other. But why on earth
would we want to give ourselves even more reason to distrust each other? I believe that this was one of Woodrow
Wilson’s motives behind his idea for the League of Nations, the predecessor to
the United Nations. He knew that we
needed a forum in which we could discuss our concerns so that we could better
understand them. Prior to the LoN and
the UN, countries largely reacted in a knee-jerk manner to the actions and
inactions of other countries, which could easily fuel tensions and lead to war. But by having this forum we could begin to
build a more united world.
Unfortunately, as many have observed, neither of these institutions have
worked particularly well (the LoN in particular is regarded as an utter
failure), but it is not because they are not powerful organizations (although
there is something to be said for the lack of power the UN sometimes seems to
have). It is because we still have such
complete distrust in each other.
In order to understand
just what distrust can do to the relationships between countries, we need look
no further than the Cold War, specifically the McCarthyism of the 1950s. We became obsessed that the Soviet Union was
plotting a means of destroying us (whether or not this is actually true is not
the subject of this blog, so I will not opine on that. This is a blog of fact, not conspiracy
theories.) that we started spying not only on them, but on our own
citizens. The entire country was
consumed by what most people now regard as a mass hysteria. Unknown numbers of people were accused of
being communist or communist sympathizers.
Many were dragged before committees and unjustly accused and sometimes
imprisoned or worse. Yet there was no
legitimate basis for this; just the paranoia of Joseph McCarthy. The nightmare endured by the country at the
time was entirely of our own construction.
Many people have drawn
parallels between McCarthyism and the actions taken by our government in the
decade since 9/11. Although we are not
even remotely close to being that paranoid, the potential is certainly
there. Moreover, many of the actions
taken are disturbingly reminiscent of those taken during the 1950s. Our government is spying on its own citizens
illegally by collecting massive amounts of metadata. Many minorities, both individuals and
organizations run by them, have been targeted simply because of their
ethnicity. Federal agencies are
continually trying to find new ways to track people physically and
digitally. Yet every time someone tries
to bring these concerns to a courtroom, the case ends up being quashed due to
concerns over national security.
These actions, as we saw
during the 1950s, breed a great deal of distrust. However, this is not limited to just citizens
of one country. In the 1950s, the Soviet
Union was easily as terrified of us as we were of them simply because of the
way we behaved toward each other. I fear that we could see a repeat of this paranoia
today if government surveillance programs are not reigned in; we have already
seen some damage to our relations with Germany after the NSA was caught tapping
the phone line of their Chancellor. Continuing
to behave in this manner will only drive bigger wedges into our foreign
relations, further dividing the world instead of unifying it. Think of it like Facebook stalking someone;
although you may find out interesting and pertinent information about them,
there is a strong likelihood that you will do irreparable harm to their
relationship, possibly destroying it in the process.
Now, to be fair, these
programs were created to protect people from potential dangers. Certainly we need to take steps to ensure
safety, and in all likelihood these programs have created some degree of
benefit, but at what point does cost outweigh benefit? We have seen a gradual erosion of rights,
mostly those that traditionally fall under the Fourth Amendment, for the sake
of protecting the country. The Founding
Fathers wrote the Constitution in an attempt to prevent this; they had seen
such actions in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. The only reason
the Bill of Rights was even put in was because there was great fear that
without it, the government would never respect the rights of the States and the
people. Yet now, we appear to be fulfilling
exactly what they feared.
Several years ago, there
was a mediocre film called “Eagle Eye” that explored this concept. While the plot was rather ludicrous, it did
come with a message that while trying to protect people and our freedoms, we
sometimes go too far. Many of the
programs enacted by the Patriot Act are an example of this; in an effort to
protect our freedom, they are in fact quashing it. At that point, the threat is from within, not
without.
Instead of succumbing to
paranoia that the world is out to get us, we need to start trusting each
other. This is, of course, far easier
said than done, but as long as we continue down the current path, we will only
continue alienating people. The Cold War
raged for decades simply because both sides were convinced that the other side
wanted to nuke them into oblivion. Yet
when we started talking, both sides were able to disarm and eventually become
allies. No two countries have to like
each other in the slightest, but if we stop alienating each other, we can
slowly build up an atmosphere of trust.
Fortunately, there are
already signs of hope. The Courts are
becoming less tolerant of surveillance programs. President Obama seems to have noticed that
the agencies executing these programs need more oversight and, where possible,
a bit more transparence. Most of all,
people have taken to the internet and social media to show their disgust. I contend that this factor is the most
important because in the digital age, nothing can stay quiet for long. Information travels farther and faster than
ever before, meaning people are now better informed and connected (although
there is something to be said for the damage this seems to wreak on
interpersonal communications; however, that is a subject fit for an entire blog
post in itself) than ever before.
This interconnectedness
shows how we as a country, a member of the global community, and as a species
must grow. I have often compared us as a
species to being teenagers; we are arrogant, petty and bigoted. We believe that we know better than everyone
else. Most of all, we believe that those
who disagree with us are not only wrong, but also are automatically our
enemies. But we can no longer cling to
the paranoid, xenophobic attitudes we have had for thousands of years. Instead, we must begin to foster trust and
respect with each other, on all levels.
As that trust begins to grow, we will see that there was never a reason
to be so petty and suspicious of each other.
Just as a person grows out
of their adolescence and eventually matures, so too will humanity. Then, and only then, will we be able to see
that none of our aberrant behavior was really warranted; as the saying goes, someday
we’ll look back and laugh.
