Posted on 06/13/2013 6:58:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
In a single weekend, Edward Snowden became one of the most famous -- and wanted -- men in the world. This is because last week Snowden, a former contractor technician for the National Security Agency, blew the lid off of a domestic spying program straight from George Orwell’s worst nightmare.
America may never be the same again.
As explained by Glenn Greenwald, the reporter with The Guardianwho worked with Snowden to expose the massive NSA eavesdropping programs, “There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.”
For a decade, the political establishment -- Big Government advocates from the Left and the Right -- mocked privacy activists over their warnings about the dangerous rise of a Surveillance State. During this time, I cautioned repeatedly that one day we would wake to find ourselves in the grip of a digital dystopia in which virtually our every electronic communication is subject to surreptitious eavesdropping by government agents. Snowden's revelations confirms this nightmare scenario.
U.S. officials are now scouring the earth looking for this 29-year old geek who many call a hero, and others a traitor. U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, immediately labeled Snowden a "defector," and said he should be extradited at once to the United States to be prosecuted to the "full extent of the law." Meanwhile, privacy activists and other whistleblowers have rallied behind him.
For me, it matters far less whether we demonize or deify this one man, than it does to bring true transparency to what the NSA and other federal agencies are doing to abuse, circumvent, and downright break federal laws designed to limit and control surreptitious snooping by Uncle Sam.
Snowden's revelations far transcend in importance the particulars of the process he employed. The concerns he has raised -- which involve damning evidence of an unchecked, massive program of surreptitious electronic eavesdropping ("SEE") by the NSA, the FBI and other government agencies -- are forcing us to confront the most serious public policy and legal issues we, as a nation of free people, have faced in decades, if ever.
The questions, prompted by leaks from Snowden and others in the last few days, present an existential crisis about what it is to be both free and safe as citizens in the United States.
Our nation was built on the principle of the rule of law; the notion that people are most free if they cede only a minimum of their natural rights to government, limited by a written Constitution, in order to secure liberty.
Yet now we are witnessing a government unbridled by the rule of law, which has become subservient to the whims of its leaders; and based not on the goal of ensuring liberty and justice, but on constructing arbitrary conditions of "security."
In this paradigm, the Fourth Amendment no longer carries any real significance for we are asked to accede to the principle that a president and his administration posses “inherent power” -- superseding any other authority or limitation -- to secretly gather, store, and analyze an infinite amount of information gathered from the private communications of millions of law-abiding citizens.
Distressingly, the failsafe on such unbridled power, supposed to be exercised by the Congress through its oversight responsibilities, has been sorely lacking. Instead, we have the spectacle of senior Senators like Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) defending actions by the NSA as beneficent because -- as we are asked to accept on faith -- they have "kept us safe." We are admonished to resist the urge to limit such extreme power because, in their Orwellian worldview, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
This is the childish solipsism to which our cherished, constitutionally guaranteed rights have been reduced.
A few weeks ago, I wrote that Democrats faced a moral crisis as the Obama Administration turned the liberal vision of Big Government into an omnipotent police state in which citizens' rights are pre-empted by the collective and over-arching need for “security.” However, Republicans, too, face this identity crisis. The people of the United States, for the first time as a result of these leaks, are becoming privy to the true scope of government snooping.
Our country truly is at a crossroad; one defined by philosopher Ayn Rand some seven decades ago, when she correctly observed: “When you take away a man’s privacy, you gain the power to control him absolutely.” "Control" -- that is what this is really all about.
Will we take the "constitutional road" (to use James Madison's description of the form of limited government laid out in the Federalist Papers), and muzzle the humongous, "security" driven Surveillance State that threatens to engulf us? Or, will we meekly succumb to it; complacent in the comfort that comes from a benign but all-powerful federal government? The next few months may very well answer that crucial question. Liberty itself hangs in the balance.
Obviously they are screeching like stuck pigs that what they are doing has been publicly revealed. So it would seem that, no, they don’t want THEIR every action to be seen.
I believe in a certain amount of security. It would be helpful for a practical application and greatly reduce costs and efforts if only they dared to profile just who they are after. But, oh, no ... they have to spy on everyone rather than offend a few.
(minor point: surprised Barr doesn’t know Nancy Pelosi isn’t a Senator; or he needs better editing)
I think we all need to be ready to face the fact that we will likely live to see a situation where the states (red states) will have to stare down a declaration of martial law. Its coming just as sure as we are talking about it.
The Congress of the United States will do nothing to stop the totalitarian apparatus. Neither will the SCOTUS. They are both now totally corrupted.
Gotta love those who have no problem with the govt spying on every move they make because they have done nothing wrong. Lets see.
Has your bank ever made a mistake and bounced a check when your had deposited the funds to cover it?
Has your landlord ever made a mistake in your rent collection or Security Deposit?
Has the Police ever made a mistake and ticketed you for speeding when you weren’t?
Have you ever gone to court....for ANY reason?
Did YOUR address get mistakenly printed on a Drug Search Warrant?
Has your son or daughter ever been in trouble at school? (like that little girl who said she was going to shoot her friend with soap bubbles and the school put in her permanent records that she was a terrorist threat)
What about that time when your rebellious son was hanging out with the wrong crowd that night and got picked up for Criminal Mischief,
and you went down to the station and signed him out?
How about the other side of you family?
The black sheep side with your same last name?
Don’t they have a son who goes to all those protests with OWS?
What about that nutcase neighbor who heads up the Neighborhood Watch?
Didn’t you piss him off one day by blocking his driveway for five minutes while moving a piano? Did you know that he was Filing Reports on “subversive” neighbors late at night on his computer?
Everything on you is permanent,,,everything. But , hey, there is nothing to fear from the govt, right?
I think you can actually do a lot of the things on your list without fear of government repercussions. The main thing is to avoid criticizing government or government officials. Just don’t talk about religion or politics anymore.
ok, but I don’t live in China or Russia!
Advocating this on Free Republic? Missing the /sarc tag! We can't hide, the brother has reams of data on us we can't remove!
Snowden is a distraction. William Binney is the real deal.
Peter King is just another dictator wannabe. He even LOOKS like a dictator.
Who is William Binney?
King is a pig. He supported terrorism for years. (the Irish Republican Army) Yet he wants Snowden to be arrested for treason?
In our Constitutional system, the government was not the source of security, the people were, that "well regulated militia" (which meant that they got regular training).
If “the people” were to be providers of our national security, they might have been a little fussier about who they let become ‘the people.’ Then none of this would be an issue. The downside of being the most open nation in history.
I don't think that was the cause. I think it was abrogating their responsibility to integrate the first great immigration wave by taking the bait of public education.
Why do you suppose many cops carry “drop guns?”
Bob, weren’t you an elected congressman? Wasn’t there any collection of data, wiretapping and spying while you were in office? This is nothing new and with technology advancing as it has, isn’t going to stop. So what do we as a country do about it? Is national security a priority or does it fall second to individual privacy?
When they get to the point of requiring criticism, assist them in having an "accident". Or choose the triple S option.
This all assumes, of course, that the ballot box option is no longer feasible.
BTTT!
I know — just pointing out the rhetoric. Everything’s always the US’s fault.
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