Tom Dispatch
What we don't know about the NSA has hurt us. All of us. (File)The
debate Edward Snowden envisioned when he revealed the extent of
National Security Agency (NSA) spying on Americans has taken a bad turn.
Instead of a careful examination of what the NSA does, the legality of
its actions, what risks it takes for what gains, and how effective the
agency has been in its stated mission of protecting Americans, we
increasingly have government officials or retired versions of the same
demanding -- quite literally -- Snowden’s head and engaging in the usual fear-mongering over 9/11. They have been aided by a chorus of pundits, columnists, and present as well as former
officials offering bumper-sticker slogans like "If you have nothing to
hide, you have nothing to fear," all the while claiming our freedom is
in direct conflict with our security.It’s time to face these arguments directly. So here are ten myths about NSA surveillance that need debunking. Let's sort them out.
1) NSA surveillance is legal.
True, if perhaps you put “legal” in quotes. After all, so was slavery once upon a time in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa. Laws represent what a government and sometimes perhaps even a majority of the people want at a given point in time. They change and are changeable; what once was a potential felony in Colorado is now a tourist draw.
Laws, manipulated for terrible ends, must be challenged when they come into conflict with the fundamental principles and morals of a free society. Laws created Nelson Mandela, the terrorist (whom the U.S. kept on its terror watch list until 2008), and laws created Nelson Mandela, the president.
There’s a catch in the issue of legality and the NSA. Few of us can know just what the law is. What happens to you if you shoplift from a store or murder someone in a bar fight? The consequences of such actions are clearly codified and you can look them up. Is it legal to park over there? The rules are on a sign posted right where you'd like to pull in. If a cop tickets you wrongly, you can go to court and use that sign to defend yourself. Yet almost all of the applicable “law,” when it comes to the National Security Agency and its surveillance practices, was secret until Edward Snowden began releasing his documents. Secret interpretations of the shady Patriot Act made in a secret court applied. The fact that an unknown number of legal memos and interpretations of that secret law (themselves still classified) are operative means that we really don’t know what is legal anymore.
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