This editorial ran in the Guardian newspaper. I thought it worth sharing (and preserving) here. -G

Monday 17 June 2013 10.28 EDT

In the NSA we trust: the trouble with faith in an omniscient state

 

Too many Americans think of their nation as inherently Christian and worthy of absolute trust, but the state is not benign 

Giles Fraser

'Whatever one thinks of the God idea, the big difference between God almighty and the secular almighty is that the former is supposed to be benign, whereas I don’t think it uncontroversial to say that the NSA is not.' Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

It's nothing new, this fear that there is someone out there watching my every move, knowing my inmost thoughts. It used to be a fear of God. Now it's a fear of Google, the NSA and GCHQ. In other words, we have invented a secular form of omniscience. For the sake of argument let us bracket out the question of whether this God actually exists. For present purposes, I am interested in how human beings have historically reacted to the prospect of there being some powerful agent/agency who knows everything about us. Thousands of years ago, the psalmist had it thus:

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there." ( Psalm 139 vv. 1-8)

But, the psalmist concludes, if we having nothing to hide, why worry? "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." This is not dissimilar to Barack Obama's line that in the trade-off between security and privacy, we ought to trust the listening spooks not to misuse information they gather about us, that they are working in our best interests. But, whatever one thinks of (let's call it) the God idea, the big difference between God almighty and the secular almighty, is that the former is supposed to be benign, indeed the very epitome of love itself, whereas I don't think it entirely uncontroversial to say that the NSA is not.
The problem is, however, that too many Americans think of their nation as inherently Christian, as set apart by God. For all their supposed separation of church and state, and for all their supposed suspicion of big government, in the end a significant proportion of Americans believe in America in the same way that they believe in God. They over-identify the Christian "we" with the American "we" – as Stanley Hauerwas puts it. In 1956, the USA replaced its unofficial motto, E pluribus unum (Out of the many, one), with an official motto, "In God we Trust".
Thus the state not so subtly claims for itself the same level of trust that Christians have in the almighty – thereby answering the initial fear that the psalmist has about absolute surveillance with the reassurance that the powers that be are benign and have our ultimate interests at heart. Nothing could be more dangerous than this, that the state deserves absolute trust. Which is why it is worth stating and restating the theologically obvious: the NSA is not God – however much it might aspire to the absolute power of omniscience.

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Go back to sleep...everthing is fine.

So today I hear that National Public Radio and other media outlets have decided not to use the word "whistleblower" to describe Edward Snowden. Their narrow reasoning is that, since the NSA data collection was technically "legal", thanks to the Obama administration, Snowden didn't reveal "illegal government activity", therefore he's not a whistleblower. Even if the law is controversial and probably even unconstitutional, and definitely a bad thing? Apparently that doesn't matter.

Jonathan Turley pointed out that "whistleblower" can cover illegal activity, but also "wrongdoing". But most of the media seems perfectly happy to do their part to keep the public from taking too much exception to what the Executive has been doing. It's easy for them to come up with lame, "sensible" sounding excuses. If this were being done under a Romney or Bush administration, rather than under Obama, I wonder how the reaction of the press, and the people, might differ?

People point out that Google, Facebook etc. already have lots of information about us, so what's the big deal? Well, they do collect some information about us, which they use to target advertising to us. But somehow I doubt Google is going to assemble all our social and purchasing data along with all our phone records, skype calls, library books, movements and associations, health records, etc. in order to create a secret dossier that can be used against us any time some official decides that something we've said, some cause we've donated to, someone we've associated with, gives them reason to dig up dirt about us.

Hmmm, I see you traveled to Lebanon recently...oh, you have college friends there; did you know that some of them may have third hand "tribal connections" to suspected extremists (peace activists, perhaps)? I see that you attend the same church as a nun who was part of a group that entered the grounds of a nuclear waste disposal site to paint peace slogans on the wall, and who is now facing federal terrorism charges because of it. And you donated to the ACLU, and have had problems paying back your student loans. Do you often renege on your lawful obligations? What does that say about your character? 

With all these suspicious connections, you are certainly a "Person of Interest" to us, and will be added to a database for extra scrutiny when it comes time to file your taxes, or take a flight, or apply for federal loans, or check your credit or criminal background. Be careful what political causes you donate to, and be sure not to make any statements that are overly critical of U.S. Foreign policy or the War on Terror, lest they serve to confirm our suspicions about you. Oh, and, by the way, you can't be told about any of this, or have any means of appealing the process, because it's all Secret, and to reveal it to you would be to reveal our "sources and methods" to the Terrorists, and besides, it would be a violation of your privacy.

It's easy, especially with the power of big data, to build a case against anyone, due to malice or just incompetence. As an analogy, think about how often there is incorrect information in our credit records (studies show it happens a lot). We have no idea how our government and its corporate contractors might use our information, and no recourse should it be misused. We drugged and kidnapped a Canadian/Syrian citizen, Maher Arar, and had him tortured for months because of wrong information linking him to muslim terrorists. After a year he was released, but the impact on his life was considerable, as you might imagine. He was one of the lucky ones who lived long enough to be let free. The Canadians eventually paid him off, but the U.S. still insists it did nothing wrong, and he and his family are still on the "No Fly List" ten years later.

 Surveillance has always been abused. Look at the investigations carried out by the Church Committee. Read up on J. Edgar Hoover, and the East German Stasi. Look at the evidence of how the "Fusion Centers" in various American cities teamed up with the feds to surveil and harrass non-violent Occupy activists in various cities. I just can't fathom how people can say this is "no big deal". I just have to conclude that they haven't really thought things through. And I think that's the way the folks in power would like it to remain.

NSA USA: Do we really have to ask if that's a bad thing?

I don't think I can handle much more media coverage today. You see, I've been following the coverage of the NSA leaks, and leaker, Edward Snowden, who's come forward. And I'll just begin by saying, apathy and ignorance are damn depressing. I know all of us can think of many instances where we felt frustration over the public's seeming lack of interest or education with relation to some issue we care about, but this is a topic that literally affects everyone, right now.

Check out the coverage on The Guardian, the British newspaper that broke the story with the help of "Civil Liberties Extremist" Glenn Greenwald. At least watch the inteview with Snowden himself, if you haven't already.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

The NPR news shows today featured mainly former CIA directors and conservative think-tank pundits as commentators on the topic. The mainstream coverage I've seen has kept the focus on the leak as a security breach, a threat to our security, blah, blah. On "On Point" this morning, there was an interview with Glenn Greenwald, who himself interviewed the NSA leaker for The Guardian. Greenwald was articulate as always, but his relatively brief segment was followed by an interview with a former government flack and Heritage Foundation member whose role was apparently to represent the status quo, to return the focus of attention back to the the leak-as-a -crime, and to generally assure everyone listening that there is nothing to worry about (except Terrorists, of course).

The show's comment section attracted some "kill the traitor!" type commenters; more of them than I usually see there, and I have to wonder if these people really bothered to educate themselves before reacting with such reflexive outrage toward the leaker, rather than the information leaked. I guess that's why they're called "reactionaries". A cynical part of me often wonders how much of the angry-internet-political-commentariat is coordinated by some kind of psy-ops public perception-management operation (maybe several different ones). I'm not just "being paranoid" in considering this possibility, either. Not when it's been known for years to anyone who bothers to pay attention that PR and spin are a huge part of the Managed Democracy game. 

Neal Conan, the "Talk of the Nation" host was actually rather patronizing and hostile toward several callers who wanted to challenge the notion that all this spying takes place "with full judicial and congressional oversight" and is basically no big deal. Sadly, the off-the-cuff callers weren't as smooth and well-prepared as someone like like Glenn Greenwald might've been, so the host was able to browbeat them successfully. I'm glad that show is being cancelled.

I've seen this pattern repeated in much of the media coverage of "leaked secrets" scandals like this, both on the radio and online (personally I try never to have anything to do with the idiocy taking place on the cable shows). There's little said about the actual information revealed, and why the leaker was willing to risk everything to come forward. When the evidence of government or corporate wrong-doing is discussed, there is usually a quick follow-up rebuttal from some government flack or journalist which reiterates the party line, which is what "sensible citizens" believe, of course.

The reader comments under many articles on major news sites are largely of the ignorant, reactionary variety. "He's a traitor", "Why would the government care about me", "Terrorists are going to kill us", "what's the big deal?" What room is there for informed discussion, disagreement, and openness to new ideas in a "dialogue" such as that. At least we Americans still have the right to express our personal opinions, however ill-informed and pointless they may be. Yay.

What really bugs me is the same thing that Edward Snowden told Glenn Greenwald worries him the most: that this story may just "blow over" like so many others, thanks to the adroit spin of propagandists and the dull complacency of a populace kept largely uneducated and apathetic. That would be a terrible shame both for Snowden, considering the personal sacrifices he made to reveal this information, and frankly for anyone else who can actually put two thoughts together in their heads and understand why a police state is a bad idea.

If nothing much changes, it will be a sure sign of the ultimate triumph of cultural apathy, a-historical ignorance, incurious complacency and conditioned obedience to authority. If that happens, I ask myself, how can I continue to live as a part of a society whose values I find increasingly repellent and inhumane? Even recognizing that neither I or anyone else is above reproach, how can I  be expected to have any respect for those of my fellow citizens whose stubborn ignorance, self-centered hypocrisy and lack of basic human compassion disgusts me?

After a while, one starts to feel that such people deserve what they get. Problem is, the rest of us have to live in this world, too.

For now, all is not (yet) lost. Some people out there are still able to remember the lessons of history, and to understand the implications of Big Data in the context of an authoritarian/corporatist political regime. They will want to take meaningful action. I just hope they aren't too small and marginal a part of society to be able to make any difference. Other nations may be able to exert political pressure on our country, and on the powerful internet companies like Google as well, serving to place at least some limits on the extent of Sauron's gaze, even while many of these nations have their own spying regimes. Also I suppose that as "consumers" (which is what we are now, instead of "citizens"), we could vote with our meager wallets and boycott those companies that do business with the NSA et al., to the extent that that is possible in the modern techno-oligopilized world.

This post will most likely be placed into a giant database by an automatic filtering algorithm,  stored along-side the rest of humanity's thoughts and expressions. A unconscious collective memory held in secret, accessible only to a shadowy few, their motives unaccountable. Information held in abeyance not to promote the development of thought, but instead to control or prevent it. A sort of vast, Anti-Library, you could say.

At any time, these words can be retro-actively called up and used against me, or anyone I associate with, should someone with the right access choose to do so at any point in the future. Given the vast, complex data-stores that exist about all of our movements, associations, habits and thoughts, it becomes frighteningly simple to retroactively pick out just the information needed to make a case, to discredit a troublesome enemy, even to render someone into oblivion. None of this is science fiction; it's all happened already. And that doesn't even account for the possibility of erroneous data, or hacking and theft.

How can anyone who considers themself an "American" not see the danger in allowing faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats and private corporate operatives to build dossiers on everyone, to be used and abused as they see fit, with no real oversight or recourse on the part of the people? Do we really think that living in a Panopticon society won't have a chilling effect on speech and thought? Can we maybe just stop arguing about our "right" to purchase AR-15's from Walmart long enough to pay some attention to the Constitional Rights that actually matter to our democracy? What does being an "American" even mean, any more?