Site icon JONATHAN TURLEY

Machines Don’t Leak: NSA Moves To Replace Humans With Machines To Stop Leaks

200px-national_security_agencysvgNational Security Agency has been reeling from leaks showing massive warrantless surveillance programs capturing communications for every American. These disclosures have further shown that officials like National Intelligence Director John Clapper committed perjury before Congress, though the White House and Congress have protected him from any charge in America’s Animal Farm system. Now, NSA director General Keith Alexander has indicated that he has a solution. With the public saying that it is more afraid of the government than terrorists and NSA workers balking at participating in such authoritarian programs, Alexander wants to replace the workers with machines. Machines don’t leak. Indeed, they have no sympathy or morals at all. They are perfect. That would leave citizens as simply the objects rather than the objectors for surveillance. So, the Obama Administration has finally found the barrier to the creation of the perfect government: the citizens themselves.

With Democrats now joining Republicans in attacking privacy and civil liberties, the only unpredictable element left for the government is people. Without pesky people, government will run far more smoothly. It appears citizens are to be monitored not listened to in the new American political system. Presumably, with an automated system of warrantless surveillance and the courts allowing the Administration to classify evidence to dismiss challenges, Alexander will simply outsource constitutional complaints to India where customer service will ask them to call back later.

Alexander is quoted as saying that he wants to reduce human administrators by 90 percent to be replaced by machines. What he sees as the “problem” is not the false statements by Obama, Clapper, or our leaders. It is those troublesome humans with their nagging consciences and individual will. He explained that his new machine operators

“cuts down number of system administrators. That would address vulnerabilities. It would also address the number of system administrators we have, not fast enough, but we plan to reduce the number of system administrators by 90 percent to make networks more defensible and secure . . . At the end of the day it’s about people and trust and I think we can get that almost perfect but we can’t solve that issue.”

The vulnerability is the involvement of humans. The government will finally create the perfect automatons to do such work without question or complaint. Congress will then be able to continue to mislead the public without fear of contradiction and continue to expand the burgeoning security apparatus that is pouring billions into the pockets of contractors and companies and agencies.

It is also another wonderful example of the open hypocrisy on display in our government. On the even of declaring, “Whistleblower Day” Congress and the White House are moving to make whistleblowers impossible. Machines don’t blow whistles. They don’t speak to reporters. They carry out any abusive or unconstitutional act that you ask of them. In other words, problem solved.

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