Well, it looks like the NSA spy scandal may be a lot worse than previously thought. Declan McCullagh makes a very good point about the danger of giving the government a lot of power without a comprehensive system of accountability:
Society tends to have great difficulty in conceiving of the fact that modern government is very diverse and open to the creation of fiefdoms as one can have at large corporations that are composed of a large number of subsidiaries. It's not only reasonable, but entirely predictable that men like J Edgar Hoover will rise to positions of power, even if it's not the same power that Hoover once had, and that they will use it for their own ends. Where we run the risk of creating a new Hoover is that Bush and Cheney have undermined the traditional role of the National Security Agency by bringing its mission partly back home, but without a real apparatus of accountability to severely punish people who violate the law and constitution.
There will always be men and women who are easily convinced that their mission is more important than the rule of law, constitutions and such. The agents who obeyed Hoover's orders to collect information on people he opposed and blackmail them easily fit that definition in spades. The only way to counter that is to create institutional mechanisms that enforce accountability and provide outsiders with the legal authority to enforce the law on rogue government bureaucracies.
It should be no surprise that when the NSA (or any government agency) receives broad surveillance powers with scant oversight, they end up being used not to nab al-Qaida members, but to eavesdrop on phone sex conversations between a lonely G.I. and a paramour back home. Video surveillance cameras supposedly designed to let cops catch criminals are used for voyeuristic purposes too.Lord Acton's views on power have become cliche, but they still apply here. The hidden cost to a free society from surveillance is that can give parts of the government leverage over society. It becomes harder for mass movements for change to form when the government can easily, strategically conduct surveillance on its potential leaders and either directly blackmail them or throw embarassing information out into the hands of the media for widespread dissemination.
History echoes this point. In decades past, government agencies have subjected hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans to unlawful surveillance, illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches. Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., feminists, gay rights leaders, and Catholic priests were spied upon. The FBI used secret files and hidden microphones to blackmail the Kennedy brothers, sway the Supreme Court, and influence presidential elections.
Society tends to have great difficulty in conceiving of the fact that modern government is very diverse and open to the creation of fiefdoms as one can have at large corporations that are composed of a large number of subsidiaries. It's not only reasonable, but entirely predictable that men like J Edgar Hoover will rise to positions of power, even if it's not the same power that Hoover once had, and that they will use it for their own ends. Where we run the risk of creating a new Hoover is that Bush and Cheney have undermined the traditional role of the National Security Agency by bringing its mission partly back home, but without a real apparatus of accountability to severely punish people who violate the law and constitution.
There will always be men and women who are easily convinced that their mission is more important than the rule of law, constitutions and such. The agents who obeyed Hoover's orders to collect information on people he opposed and blackmail them easily fit that definition in spades. The only way to counter that is to create institutional mechanisms that enforce accountability and provide outsiders with the legal authority to enforce the law on rogue government bureaucracies.
Accountability, man do I hear what your saying here. I just don't understand how people can make excuses for their inactions, law breaking, moral and ethical choices based on what they "feel" is right FOR THEM.
Good heavens people *shaking head*.
I'm not even that bright and I understand how it all works. Doesn't say much for others, now does it?
Ugh.
"It becomes harder for mass movements for change to form when the government can easily, strategically conduct surveillance on its potential leaders and either directly blackmail them or throw embarassing information out into the hands of the media for widespread dissemination."
When I read this, I thought of what JFK said: "when one makes peaceful revolution impossible, it makes violent revolution inevitable"
So we are presented with an irony of sorts here: the more government tries to control a situation, eventually the more out of control it will get.
Or *putting my geek hat on here* as Princess Leia said to Grand Moff Tarkin: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"