You've
got to marvel at the industry of Cold Warriors and their offspring
constantly reminding us of the state security measures-- real or
imagined-- suffered by the inhabitants of the former Eastern European
socialist countries. Books, movies, television and anecdotes have
deeply embedded in the minds of people in the US the notion that life
in Eastern Europe was under oppressive monitoring with spies lurking
everywhere. Countless reports of visits to socialist countries told
of the suspicions or hunches or impressions of being followed,
watched, or overheard. I was always disappointed, in my admittedly
infrequent visits to Eastern Europe or Cuba, that I never shared
these experiences. I was either incredibly myopic or deemed not
nearly as worthy of attention as were others.
Outside
of the minority of US citizens who systematically question every
“truth” endorsed and proclaimed by official circles, most people
feel secure in believing that “we” don't do what “they” do or
did. In fact, the certitude of our superiority in respecting privacy,
speech, and beliefs serves as a pillar of the mythology of the land
of the free.
Of
course many of us on the left know better. We know first hand that
the US security services operate without restraint or oversight. We
know that every
significant anti-war movement, every
committee in solidarity with the victims of US imperialism, every
party to the left of the Democrats, and even every
renegade celebrity earns the attention of the US secret police
agencies. We know that the tens of thousands of operatives employed
and the huge budgets granted are not there for occasional or aberrant
spying, but for systematic surveillance and monitoring of anyone
perceived as challenging the ruling class consensus. We know that,
whenever the need is felt, laws are passed that violate or stretch
the intent of the Constitution. And extra-legal means-- easily
concealed from the public-- are also common.
But
you don't have to be among that select group to know what security
services do. You don't have to be an anti-war activist to know that
FBI files do not magically appear, but are created through
surveillance and informants. The sordid history of the FBI,
especially during the Hoover era, is available for all to see.
Congressional committees have exposed enough of the chicanery,
illegal activity, and violence of the security agencies to give
everyone but the willfully blind an idea of just how fragile our
privacy and personal integrity are under this self-styled democracy.
Yet
liberals-- occupying a political category brazenly drawing its name
from “liberty”-- have woefully fallen short in confronting the
rise and expansion of the intrusive, Orwellian surveillance state, a
process that only accelerated since the Second World War. The fears
of the Cold War provided a handy excuse for government intrusion into
the lives of hundreds of thousands of US citizens, driving such
august institutions as the American Civil Liberties Union into
backsliding and equivocation.
We
saw it again in the uprisings of the 1960s, when even more presumably
innocent citizens became the object of surveillance by a myriad of
federal, state, and municipal spy agencies. Once again, the response
was loud and clamorous on the part of the liberal establishment, but
to little effect. Only Nixon's outrageous near-coup and the
persistence of a few members of the normally somnolent media saved us
from even further devolving toward a repressive, intrusive state in
the early 1970s.
A
further step towards a police state arrived with the so-called “War
on Terror.” Few in the liberal establishment defied the hysterical
surrender of the rights to privacy, speech, or association that
ensued. In fact, most joined conservatives in a race to empower the
security agencies with money, manpower, and legislation.
Oddly,
those who find it so easy to identify snooping in foreign lands are
conveniently blind to that malignancy in their own neighborhoods.
And
now comes the Snowden affair.
The
Nation magazine pens a headline, “A
Modern Day Stasi State,” really a gratuitous slap at the former
German Democratic Republic, to characterize the Snowden revelations
of massive and comprehensive surveillance by the NSA. The truth is
that nothing that the GDR security services could have possibly
envisioned parallels the collection of every electronic communication
by every US citizen. Perhaps the liberals at The
Nation draw some perverse satisfaction
from the false belief that other countries have gone to the same
lengths to monitor their unsuspecting and innocent citizens.
And
in an editorial commentary (“Snoop Scoops”) by Hendrik Hertzberg,
The New Yorker
magazine attempts to simultaneously maintain three pathetically weak
excuses for the Administration's secretive spying programs: first,
the Snowden revelations expose nothing new-- we already knew about
the NSA programs; second, the NSA collects the content, but doesn't
examine it; and third, there is nothing illegal about the NSA
surveillance.
The
best that can be said for the Hertzberg apology is that maybe his
boss, the old Cold Warrior David Remnick, forced him to write this
nonsense. The fact that one could follow threads and leaks to learn
of NSA programs hardly excuses the absence of the topic in most
mainstream media and popular discussion. Hertzberg glaringly fails to
point to any effort on the part of his magazine to discuss the NSA
surveillance. Moreover, if everyone knew about the programs, how do
we account for the hysterical response of the Administration, its
cronies (Senator Feinstein called Snowden a “traitor”), and
apologists? How do we account for the criminal charges against Edward
Snowden? For revealing something everybody knew?
Clearly
this is a sleazy sidestepping of the profound dangers raised by the
government's license to snoop.
Only
the terminally gullible would believe that the content of collected
data lies untouched in NSA electronic files. With nearly one and a
half million government employees and contractors enjoying top secret
clearance, surely a few would be tempted to check the e-mails or
phone calls of their neighbors, ex-lovers, or rivals. Hertzberg takes
literally the assurances of the same people who have been trying
desperately to keep NSA activity from public scrutiny.
I
suppose one could equally say that “nothing illegal” occurred in
Nazi Germany, given that laws were passed enacting or enabling nearly
all of the carnage inflicted by the fascist regime. In truth, the
vast powers granted by the Patriot Act and the secret kangaroo courts
legitimizing NSA acts guarantee that legality washes over anything
and everything that government agencies do or could do, as they
equally would sanction the SS or Gestapo in the Third Reich.
Indeed,
our moment is not so remote from those moments preceding the
consolidation of fascist rule in Italy or Germany. Like those times,
liberals and social democrats are temporizing, excusing, and denying
the assault on privacy, personal security, association, and dissent.
The
true history of those times-- not the convenient history that blames
the staunchest opponents of fascism, the Communists-- points to the
treason and capitulation of bourgeois politicians who sought to
compromise, outsmart, or neutralize the tide of fascism. Similarly,
our liberal politicians populating the Democratic Party (with a few
notable, courageous exceptions) rush to establish their security bona
fides by endorsing the expansion of the
police state. They show the same misplaced confidence in their
ability to restrain or control the uncontrollable.
Amplifying
the hesitation of liberals is the embarrassing role of the Obama
Administration in the construction of the NSA police state. After
giving their undivided, unqualified support to the candidacy of hope,
change, and the restoration of liberal values, the liberal
establishment finds itself in the uncomfortable position of defending
the trappings of a police state or, conversely, righteously attacking
their designated standard bearer. This dilemma has driven liberals to
such outrageous statements as Hertzberg's: “The critics [of the
NSA] have been hard put to point to any tangible harm that has been
done to any particular citizen,” a statement worthy of a
self-satisfied burgher in Munich in 1934.
Particularly
bruised by the Snowden revelations are those pseudo-radicals who have
unceasingly called for a love fest with the Democratic Party as a
response to the “fascist danger.” How does one enlist those who
we now know have crafted and implemented fascist-like policies as
partners in stopping fascism? Surely embracing them as anti-fascist
allies borders on insanity.
Perhaps
it is only fitting that those seduced by the pied piper of hope and
change have arrived at this juncture. However, we have lost far too
much ground to this political silliness. There is too much at stake.
We deserve better.
Zoltan
Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment