http://obrag.org/?p=3609
By Jordan Brossi
I was thrilled to have the pleasure to see Kate Martin, director for the Center for National Security Studies, discuss the burgeoning controversy of government surveillance at Dickinson College’s annual Constitution Day Address. Martin, an expert in the field of national security and civil liberties issues, discussed her take on our nation’s current surveillance dilemma. Martin spent the majority of the lecture delving into the history of surveillance in the United States. And, though Martin described her address at the outset as both a defense of and advocacy for government surveillance, I was disappointed that Martin gave short shrift to her defense of surveillance. Instead, she advocated a sharp curtailing of the National Security Agency’s intelligence gathering power, which eclipsed a discussion of the benefits of the program. In her critique, Martin emphasized the tenuous security environment that the NSA has created, with vast intelligence collection capabilities that could be used illegitimately to capture all communications. It was clear that Martin finds the NSA’s surveillance program unconstitutional.
Although Martin paid short shrift to a defense of the surveillance program, Martin’s description of the history of surveillance in the United States provided a necessary background to the lecture. Surveillance history provides many necessary precedents and parallels to current day surveillance programs and legislation. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) for example declared that former President Truman’s seizure of steel mills was unconstitutional, for there was no Congressional authorization. Moreover, that President Truman could not use World War II as justification for seizing the mills. Parallel to our ‘war on terror’ or ‘fight against extremists,’ President Obama cannot allow the NSA to continue its intelligence gathering program because of our interests in fighting terror threats overseas.
Moreover, as another negative consequence of the NSA program, Martin also posited that the surveillance program has built the potential for a police state in the United States. Our federal government is gathering metadata from our private telephone calls, emails, and internet searches, to catch citizens in the US who may be agents of a foreign entity. The program however is the opposite of what our Founding Farmers sought: to be free from the oppression and barbarism of the King of England. George C. Herring describes in his novel From Colony to Superpower the barbarities which Martin alludes to, which in the 1770s encompassed “closing off the trans-Appalachian region, enforcing long-standing trade restrictions, and taxing the Americans for their own defense” (From Colony to Superpower, 14). Barbarism in the late 18th century consisted of the King blocking trade routes and taxing the colonies for their own defense. And, barbarism in the 21st century consists of our government secretly wiretapping our calls. Centuries apart, we face barbarities as did our Founding Fathers.
The NSA’s surveillance program captures data from mostly unknowing, most likely unconsenting, Americans. However, the barbarity does not stop at an infringement upon our rights. Through FISA and consequent amendments, surveillance extends outside of our boundaries to international countries. Surveillance of calls placed from the US to an international country, or calls from an international country back to the US, are what the NSA hopes will expose foreign contacts who are agents of another country. However, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to give up some of our individual liberties to be protected from terror threats. Just as Martin argued, our terror threat may be shifting from enemies abroad to an enemy at home: our government. The NSA’s broad surveillance program has indeed built the potential for a police state. Our phones can be wiretapped, as can our emails and internet searches. Are we willing to be a little less secure in the hands of our own government to be a little more secure from terror groups? That is one question with two equally unacceptable answers.
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