This post is based on the comments of Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence which come from a FoxNews Story. This issue has the most serious implications of any discussion that we are having today, and I am concerned that conservatives have neglected to evaluate the consequences sufficiently. Before you go further, there will be adult topics discussed. If you are easily offended, you may want to turn back.
Prior to 9/11, our “right to privacy” debate was centered on pornography and sexual preference. No one was really concerned about anyone’s sexual preferences or if you liked to watch goats have sex on the internet. The 4th Amendment protections in our Constitution are there to protect individual liberties, because the government’s power and ability to intrude on that liberty is stronger than the individual’s ability to repel government.
Beginning in about the 1980s, technology has allowed us to use satellite cameras to count the dimples on a golf ball from 100 miles in space. We can transmit wireless signals around the world. We build a 10 ton aircraft that is virtually invisible to radar. We can spy on someone from within their own home with a camera the size of a pencil eraser. We can comb an incredible number of webpages in mere seconds for a single word. Technology has allowed us to copy phone calls and emails in the billions, and thresh them through a supercomputer to find a single reference that might mean an impending attack that will kill thousands of Americans.
We are in a precarious position. The rock is the cumulative threats to our security. The hard place is the freedom that we enjoy. The bedrock of our Constitution is the individual right to privacy. Privacy that allows me to post on my blog about our President’s lack of action on immigration, among a number of other things. Privacy that allows me to own weapons in my home to protect my family. Privacy that allows me to speak with my attorney without the government being a party to such discussions. Privacy that prevents government troops from appropriating my home for quarters.
Yet without some ability on the part of government to look into the lives of people, we run the risk of losing those privacies when some lunatic detonates a dirty bomb at the Mall of America or some other place. What do we do about this conundrum?
I am firmly behind our government using technology to root out those among us who do not share my views on the greatness of America. We need a process by which the intelligence and law enforcement agencies can take immediate action to find information so that they may act quickly. There are occasions where there is no time to obtain a warrant through the normal criminal processes.
Yet the following statements of Kerr make me extremely uncomfortable, “Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.”
Privacy should still mean anonymity. Look, I personally don’t care if the government listens to my phone calls about how great the weather is down in Florida when I’m conversing with my mother or father. I don’t care if they hear me touting how great my fantasy football team is this year. And, I don’t care if they peek in on the countless emails and commentary I’ve penned about the idiocy of GOP cheerleading and why I don’t waste countless hours blogging about Hillary Clinton. I’m quite certain they’ve the resources to intercept anything from my house at anytime.
We can’t allow the government to run rampant through our lives. I don’t believe that we have a McCarthyistic government intent on prosecuting anyone who doesn’t agree with the government. I do believe that while the people at the office of National Intelligence have all the best intentions, they have no interest reading all of my emails and listening to my phone calls.
So, I guess you might surmise that I’m quite certain that no one listens to my calls. Supercomputers search through them to find information that will connect with other intelligence to piece together a puzzle. However, when a government employee says that we just have to get used to the government being a voyeur of everything about out lives, I am concerned.
The phone companies shouldn’t be penalized for being civic minded following 9/11 and allowing government to access records. We should grant them immunity from then until now. But it has to stop. It has been more than six years and that is enough time to put together a reasonable process for reviewing things that need reviewed.
Freedom to me is being able to go to bed at night with the knowledge that when I wake up, the Constitution will still be in place.
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