The sky is falling.
That is literally the import of the National Security Agency leak story that is dominating headlines around the world this week.
Here in Lincoln County we have plenty to talk about, budgets and town meetings, fire chiefs and retirements, but in our opinion, by far the most important story of our time is the fact that an established program of pervasive federal surveillance of private American citizens has been finally dragged into the light.
Civil libertarians have been warning of this situation almost since the moment the Patriot Act was first proposed in late 2001. The scope of the government’s domestic surveillance has been long whispered about and hinted at, but now it is on the record.
We refer you to any one of the national and international sources for the details on the story. We particularly cite Glenn Greenwald and his groundbreaking work for the left-leaning British newspaper, The Guardian. Greenwald broke the story last week and promises more scoops to come.
The variety and scope of the issues involved is mind boggling, and only begin with the government’s willful violation of the Fourth Amendment, the private citizen’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Then there is the whole issue of farming out the business of state secrets to private companies, entities by design beyond the reach of Freedom of Information laws; and this is all against the backdrop of the necessity for national security.
We believe in the need to maintain national security, and obviously part of that practice means that not all those cards should be on the table all the time.
In the real world, you have to expect and be prepared for the other players dealing off the bottom of the deck if it’s in their best interest. Ideals are nice but pragmatism is more durable.
However, America is designed to be a country governed by the people, for the people, of the people. It’s a messy, complicated business, but it is the way our system works and the reason it has worked for almost 237 years. The government’s business is the people’s business, our business, and as much of the people’s business as possible needs to be done in the open.
The heart of our concern is not necessarily the existence of the program; it is the apparent lack of oversight by our elected officials and the obvious lack of concern about that lack of oversight.
If some of this business shouldn’t be discussed freely in public it also shouldn’t be hidden away in the world of sealed court rulings, executive memos and top secret briefings.
Here is the bottom line. Right now it is true, that the 99.99 percent of us not involved in international terrorism have little reason to fear, but all it takes to make law-abiding citizens criminals is to tweak the laws.
We are a hop, skip, and a jump from a future president taking office and then saying something to the effect: ‘You know, everyone who may have voted for my opponent might be an enemy of the state.’
If and when that happens, because of these domestic surveillance programs, the people in power have all the information they need to decide who is whom. It happened in Germany, it happened in the Soviet Union; it has happened elsewhere, and it can certainly happen here.
Don’t believe it? Ask yourself this: How comfortable are you when our current president assures you there is nothing to fear? Would you feel any better if the last one were still in charge?
