The EFF, NSA and Wiretapping Revisited

I received some very intelligent responses to my post about the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T and the domestic spying issue that has been all over the news of late. I encourage people to view the responses there by Tom Kent and my friend Shawn. The discussion is good enough that I'm creating this new blog entry with Shawn's post and my reponse.

Shawn's post:

At Monday, February 20, 2006 8:03:42 PM, shards said...

Hey Trav,

Well I think you know my stance on the government as a whole. I think it the guy's name was Acton who said "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely". Taking away 'checks and balances' that are there for this exact reason, is absolute power. In some ways I wasn't worried about this anyway because it's, to me, more of a legal positioning. The gov't is going to tap and snoop on it's citizens regardless of whether they have permission or not. They are the government, they don't answer to anyone. If we think they are 'elected' by the people then we are just as brainwashed as the millions that vote for these yahoos. I have yet to read the EFF case and will now, but just wanted to throw in my very generalised 2c on the theory that the government is wholesome and good and is only looking for our best interests. Abuse of this privilege will happen, no doubt. The checks and balances placed upon the gov't previously were there for a reason, and still should be. If anything, the gov't should be held ten fold more responsible for such activities against it's own citizens, and not try to shirk this responsibility.

My response:

At Monday, February 20, 2006 10:47:14 PM, Travis said...

Hey bro,

Thanks for the comment. I can't say that I totally disagree with you or Tom regarding this issue. I'm a big fan of government being small and basically only a "necessary evil." To me, this issue isn't a cut-and-dry issue of government power vs. individual rights. Because there is a third issue at stake here. And that third issue is a pretty big one - because without it, government power and individual rights are kind of pointless.

It's easy for us as we sit here - with jobs and relative comfort, safety and well-being - to say that privacy is a huge priority to us. But suppose all the sudden there was no air. Where would your priorities be then? Probably breathing would be more important I'm guessing. Do you see my point in that? I think Tom kinda missed my point earlier when I revisited the damage that a single attack did to our economy, our feeling of safety, and a major industry in our society. Suppose we had several such attacks in the span of a few months and suppose they touched many different areas of our society. Imagine the massive damage that would do to our economy and the feeling of safety - not to mention the possibility that the lives of those we love or even our own lives might be lost during that time or in the resulting chaos. Imagine people afraid to go shopping for fear of random bombs or chemical attacks at stores across the country. Imagine bombs showing up on airplanes despite all the "safety" measures taken at our airports. You probably didn't hear about that bomb they found on a plane in Detroit a few weeks ago. The press did a pretty good job of overlooking that one. Or imagine some chemical or biological attacks on water supplies in several cities causing people to not even trust the water they drink. There are so many ways that our open society makes us vulnerable to any number of attacks. Masses of people would stop doing a lot of things for fear of their own safety and the subsequent effect on our economy could possibly bring about a major collapse. Layoffs, huge unemployment numbers, riots, looting, all these things are entirely possible in that scenario. And how easy would it be to bring all that about? Think to yourself as you drive the short distance to work all the things you could do to disrupt our society with little or no effort. Anything to bring about fear would be the name of the game. It's not even about how many people you kill. It's all about playing to people's fear and over a period of time you could bring down the greatest nation in the world.

So what's more important? Listening in on a few thousand phone calls of people are communicating with known terrorists or people connected with terrorists? Or running blind with the hopes that they will simply leave us alone so people's privacy won't be sacrificed.

They aren't going to leave us alone. We are going to lose something - either freedoms via one way or freedoms via another. I don't think there's any way you can rationally dispute that. We either lose freedoms to the terrorists or we lose them to ourselves as a result of the terrorists.

You know me - you know that I'm a big fan of privacy - PGP and Tor and Privoxy and the like. But I'm also a bit of a pragmatist and I understand that we're in a lose-lose situation. We can't have it both ways. I'm not a fan of the government watching what I do - not in the least. But let's call and apple and apple here. The government watching phone calls to terrorists does not equal 1984. I do realize that this is a step in that direction. But I also realize that we haven't had a terrorist attack in the last four and a half years and I imagine that it has been programs like this NSA spying program that have helped us stay safe. I don't think it's just some quirky coincidence that oh we have this crappy spying program and oh yeah we haven't been attacked either. I'm sure there are lots of other programs we don't know about that have been going on for a while too to help bring this about. I mean, it's not like the terrorists just gave up and decided to quit attacks on us since that last one was such a failure and all.

So to me - it's a trade-off. I get to have a job and relative comfort for myself and my family. And I have the understanding that if I call a terrorist I'm probably going to be listened to by my government. Could the government go further? Oh sure. I've often wondered if the government isn't already watching my e-mails or listening to my conversations looking for special phrases like "kill the President" or something like that since the Clinton administration was in power. I was actually surprised that those conversations with terrorists were the *only* ones they were listening to. And who knows, maybe they aren't the only ones. Government is not wholesome and good and it never will be - despite what folks on the left tend to believe.

There have been many previous Presidents that have used this type of power in the past - why now then do we only attack *this* administration for using it when at least this time there is some level of necessity for it?

And to get to the EFF's lawsuit - I'd like to know exactly how this lawsuit is going to help the situation. Like most frivolous lawsuits I'm sure that the public will bear the burden of it in the end and the world will be no better than before. Dear Lord the DMCA is still out there can't they do something about that instead? Talk about loss of rights and privacy... Let's take all the power to spy on us away from government and give it to corporations instead. I believe *that* is where the larger threat looms - not in government. Corporations will eventually have unfettered access to everything about us and we stand by and point fingers at the government like they are the largest evil for listening to some phone conversations. What insanity that is...

But to bring this back around Shawn, I do totally understand what you are saying and I would be in support of allowing this program (and the others that are probably out there too) to exist but maybe put some more controls in place than what already exist. I think it's best to work with the situation - let the government do what it can to "promote the general welfare" but also maybe put some controls in place so that 1984 doesn't become a reality.