The Framers Knew How We Could Protect Ourselves . . .

Written by: Austin Mircheff on Oct 4, 2006 12:42 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Glendale DFA

The Framers Knew How We Could Protect Ourselves . . .
. . . and Our Privacy

Nothing to Hide?

The Government is spying on us. National Security Agency personnel are eavesdropping on phone conversations between U.S. and overseas locations. They are monitoring our domes-tic phone calls, our Internet communications, and our financial transactions. The president's administration and his supporters attack those who expose and criticize these illegal programs as serving the interests of enemies who would harm us. They tell us warrantless unapproved spying is necessary, that we have to abandon our old notions of privacy if we are to be pro-tected from terrorism.

For many of us, sacrificing privacy to gain security seems an easy trade. Again and again, people claim, "I have nothing to hide." They feel that their lives can be open books, and the only thing anyone would want to keep private must be some dark and shameful secret, or some nefarious plot.

But What Have We Got to Lose?

The Government's presumption in invading our privacy is that everyone, excluding, of course, the people who work in Government, is potentially a terrorist and therefore everyone needs to be watched.

Far-fetched? A creation of George Orwell's (see Box) fertile imagination?

No. It's been tried by individuals throughout history. From Caesar in Rome to Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, the justification always has been that the state has to the re-sponsibility to protect itself and its citizens from their enemies.
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George Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-four, written in 1948 describes life under a totalitarian, one-party government. The government is personified as "Big Brother." Every night, Big Brother appears on the telescreen. He keeps the country in a continuous, ever-shifting stalemate war. He controls all media - including the history books, which are continu-ally rewritten to conform to the Party's version of reality - and he uses the media to promote fear, hatred of the "enemy," and loyalty to the party.

The telescreen is not just a television; it also is a listening device through which the Thought Police spy on all citizens. The Thought Police stay busy suppressing personal relation-ships, because they conflict with loyalty to the party. They suppress all private thought and any questioning of the Party's version of reality.
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Private Information

Let's start with the notion that privacy is our ability to control information about ourselves.

The idea of information seems very abstract. Does information have value? One of the simplest ways to see that it does is to look at simple items of personal data. Everyone knows that when thieves learn our social security number, birth date and driver's license data, they have gained control of our identities, and it does not take a great effort for them to get hold of our money and our reputations. Most of us are willing to provide this information to be able to open bank accounts and get credit cards. And when we do, we expect it to be kept private for-ever.

Other kinds of private information have significant value. Think of the information people routinely keep in their computers. Information that we transmit to others whom we trust. Sometimes this is information that we have to share to move creative endeavors forward and to build businesses. The writers of movie scripts, artists, scientist and engineers all need the pro-tection of privacy to keep others from stealing their works in progress, and their livelihoods. The businesswoman needs the protection of privacy to keep competitors from learning her stra-tegic plans.

Another kind of information is valuable because we can be deeply harmed when it is mis-used. Consider your medical information and mental health history. There are "facts" about each of us that, objectively, say nothing about our fitness to hold jobs or participate in society, but if disclosed, could bring us professional discrimination, or social ostracism. This is private information that puts us at risk of coercion at the hands of blackmailers, and at risk of retribu-tion by someone with a grudge against us.

Finally, there is the kind information that reflects the integrity of each of our consciences. Every one of us holds ethical, religious, or scientific beliefs that someone in another belief sys-tem would find offensive, or even blasphemous - and deserving of the most severe retribution.

Hysterical Exaggeration? Extreme Overreaction?

Each of the different kinds of information we routinely expect to control either already is known or can be learned by people who work in our government, the people who listen to our phone conversations and read our emails.

Can we trust them to not abuse our private information? Can we trust them to keep it private? The recent news is not encouraging. Government workers and contractors with no malicious motives have acted incompetently or irresponsibly, with the result that the "identity" data of millions of veterans and current service members have been exposed. And there are notorious cases of vindictive malice. Officials at the highest level of our government "leaked" information (see the GDFA Essay, "A Broken Trust") with the sole intention of punishing individuals who challenged fabrications justifying the Iraq invasion.

But aren't Things Different this Time?

Yes, the threats we face from terrorists are of a magnitude that we've never had to face before. No one can doubt that there are people in the world who fervently believe that we are evildoers living in an evil society. And who believe that their God will reward them eternally for destroying us.

The Surprising, Simple Wisdom We Forgot

How can we balance our need to be kept safe from terrorists against our need to be kept safe from malicious people within our own government? The men who framed our Constitution knew the answer. It was surprisingly simple:

Our privacy is protected by openness and accountability.

Our constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure requires that any government employee or agent who wants access to our private information has to explain his reasons to a third party, a judge. The judge's ultimate responsibility in issuing a warrant for obtaining that information is to assure that the agent's reasons for wanting it are . . . well, reasonable. The element of accountability in applying for a warrant is a powerful restraint on the agent's ability to act capriciously or maliciously with our private information.

This is a lot like a mantra often heard two decades ago, when the US and the former Soviet Union agreed to draw down their nuclear arsenals: "Trust, but verify."

We have to trust judges to be neutral and objective. We have to trust government agents to give judges honest information, then to use that information with integrity. Our privacy is safer when there is a judge who knows who's got our information. It's that simple.

The Glendale Democracy for America Issues Advocacy Group
October, 2006

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Location: Glendale, CA 91201