Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

Dr. Obamalove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love a Police State

220px-Drstrangelove1sheet-Below is my column in this week’s U.S. News & World Report, which is part of a debate over the question: Should Americans Be Worried About the National Security Agency’s Data Collection? On the other side was former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Professor John Yoo who answered the question in a predictable no. I suppose my answer was equally predictable.

The response of the White House and congressional allies to the disclosure of a massive surveillance program of all calls by all Verizon customers is eerily reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Various leaders like Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., assured citizens that there is nothing to fear in having the government collect all of your calls, including details like their duration, location, time and your associations. Call it the sequel: “Dr. Obamalove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love a Police State.” Our leaders are assuring us that such databanks will help them protect us from others, but who will protect us from our protectors?

The disclosure of the secret order for every call by every citizen (domestic or international) comes on the heels of a scandal involving the investigation of reporters by the administration. It came before the disclosure of another massive data-mining program that seized e-mail, photos and other private communications from some of the biggest Internet companies. It is all part of the same growing surveillance system in the United States – a system demanding absolute transparency of reporters and citizens alike.

[Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.]

Years ago, civil libertarians raised an outcry over the Total Information Awareness data-mining project, an operation viewed as so dangerous to privacy and civil liberties that it was formally stopped by Congress. It was designed to allow the government to follow citizens in real time by linking massive databanks and electronic systems. While many celebrated an increasingly rare victory for civil liberties, it now appears that the intelligence community merely broke the system into smaller pieces.

Each of these intrusions has been justified as making us safer, but collectively that creates a fishbowl society where privacy is little more than an illusion. We are approaching the tipping point in our system, where liberty is giving way to authoritarian power. While our current leaders may be benign, we are increasingly dependent on their good motivations and discretion for our liberty. It is precisely the system that the framers rejected at our founding. Benjamin Franklin warned of the siren’s call for power by government officials when he observed that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

If we allow these officials to strip us of our privacy, we have not failed the Framers. We have failed ourselves.

JONATHAN TURLEY is the Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University

U.S.News & World Report, June 7, 2013

95 thoughts on “Dr. Obamalove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love a Police State”

  1. Thought about the attorney client relationships compromised..husband wife…. The doctor patient…. The list goes on….these are crazy folks…

  2. Swarthmore mom 1, June 11, 2013 at 8:14 am

    … someday, the abuses will begin, in all likelihood long before we know about them …
    ========================================
    The violation of the 4th Amendment is abuse now.

    We don’t have to wait to be abused.

  3. “Years ago, civil libertarians raised an outcry over the Total Information Awareness data-mining project, an operation viewed as so dangerous to privacy and civil liberties that it was formally stopped by Congress. …. While many celebrated an increasingly rare victory for civil liberties, it now appears that the intelligence community merely broke the system into smaller pieces.” -Jonathan Turley.

    And whatever happened to Cheney’s Operation TIPS? (One of these days, Americans may get the answer to that question, as well.)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_TIPS

  4. Cole DBiers 1, June 11, 2013 at 7:27 am

    There are nearly 500,000 people in US with top level security clearance.
    ===============================================
    The Washington Post says it is 854,000.

  6. “The government has admitted to unconstitutional NSA spying before—last year. The existence of these newly reported databases should be worrisome because once the information is collected, it is so much easier for the government to misuse it. The more data mining, the more it becomes routine and the more tempting to come up with more uses for it. If you trust President Obama and his people not to go too far, what about the next president, or the one after that? We have now had a Republican and a Democrat administration sign up for a broad expansion of warrantless wiretapping and other surveillance, and bipartisan support in Congress for the tradeoffs we have struck. And yes, there is more to the current revelations than we know—in particular, the rationale for the FISA court’s long-standing order for the phone data, and the rationale for PRISM. Let’s concede that a terrorist attack somewhere has probably been prevented as a result of these efforts. So how do we ever go back?

    We probably don’t. And someday, the abuses will begin, in all likelihood long before we know about them. I’m not usually moved by slippery slope arguments. But this one looks so very easy to slide down.” Emily Bazelon,Slate

  7. What You Should Know About The Intelligence Community’s Contractors
    By Hayes Brown
    Jun 10, 2013
    http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/06/10/2127511/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-intelligence-communitys-contractors/

    Excerpt:
    Private contractors may be more expensive than government employees. Many former government employees make the switch into private contracting, which can serve to drive up the amount they wind up costing the American taxpayer. A 2007 report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that the average government employee working as an intelligence analyst cost $126,500, while the same work performed by a contractor would cost the government an average $250,000 including overhead. The total annual budget of the intelligence community is itself secret; only the top line is reported to the public. For Fiscal Year 2014, the Obama administration requested $48.2 billion for the National Intelligence Program, encompassing “six Federal departments, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.” Of that amount, according to a 2007 article, an amazing 70 percent goes towards private contractors…

    More than half a million private contractors can access the country’s secrets. A large degree of surprise also was related to the fact that Snowden had access to many of the documents he obtained so soon after beginning to work for Booz Allen. Once obtained, a clearance is a relatively hard thing to lose, so long as you remain employed by a company that does work requiring you to hold one. These clearances also only need to be renewed every five years while active. According to a 2013 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a total of 483,263 contractors held Top Secret clearances in 2012, the highest level one can obtain, with another 582,524 holding them at the Confidential and Secret levels.

  10. Cole,

    NSA Leak Highlights Key Role Of Private Contractors
    By JONATHAN FAHEY and ADAM GOLDMAN
    06/10/13
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/nsa-leak-contractors_n_3418876.html?1370919691

    Excerpt:
    The reliance on contractors for intelligence work ballooned after the 9/11 attacks. The government scrambled to improve and expand its ability to monitor the communication and movement of people who might threaten another attack.

    “After 9/11, intelligence budgets were increased, new people needed to be hired,” Augustyn said. “It was a lot easier to go to the private sector and get people off the shelf.”

    The reliance on the private sector has grown since then, in part because of Congress’ efforts to limit the size of federal agencies and shrink the budget.

    Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access “confidential and secret” government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a report from Clapper’s office. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher “top secret” access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.

  11. The ever expanding military and police industrial complex needs to justify its existence and the only way to do that is keep people in fear of shadows instead of fear of the police state.

  12. The response of two individuals who in my opinion facilitated and enable the commission of war crimes is truly predictable. The Constitution means nothing to them.

    As to those like Jennifer who would give up her freedoms to be “safe”. I posit this scenario what do you do when a criminally in same but smooth and charming politician gains control of these far reaching powers? Think about it that might change you mind.

  13. There are nearly 500,000 people in US with top level security clearance.
    Snowden was only one of them.
    He gave up a 200k job and may wind up imprisoned or worse, just to bring the scope of NSA actions to light.

    How many others with top level clearance have been instead selling info to whoever will pay for it.

    Anyone gullible enough to believe “nobody”?

  16. Jennifer, you are not in position to determine what rights others have to give up in order to make you feel safer. We have a thing called the Bill of Rights. It is what makes or made this country truly free and great.

    If you do not feel safe in America, I suggest you move then.

    ‘A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”- James Madison

  18. i am totally willing to sacrifice some of my privacy if it means they will put an end to some of the most disturbed heinous criminally insane.

  19. i get the greatness of his opinion; but just exactly what power does he have over the authorities gathering information. i can think of several people who will only be caught by gathering information.

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