If we do turn into a police state some time in the future and everyone is feeling safe and secure and watched, Obama will not be remembered as a hero of that movement: there are no heroes of that kind of future. No one will brag, in the future, that they were so frightened of terrorists that they acquiesced to the erosion of one of our most fundamental of civil liberties: the right to not be watched.
They will be ashamed. We know this because neither George Bush or Obama or any other leading politician was willing to campaign on a platform that included the idea of instituting massive warrantless surveillance of every U.S. citizen.
But if America comes to its senses in the next few years and realizes just how awful the consequences of the surveillance state is, Obama will certainly be regarded as a jerk, who made one of the worst decisions in U.S. Presidential history, who suffered the most profound failure of imagination of a Democratic leader since Lyndon Johnson forgot to end the Viet Nam war after he realized it could never be won.
Yes, Obama will be known as the Lyndon Johnson of the 21st century, a smart, dynamic leader who made numerous good decisions and one or two incredibly horrible decisions that permanently scarred the perception of his administration. Johnson achieved many remarkable things, including landmark civil rights legislation and anti-poverty programs. But he could not bear to make himself vulnerable to conservatives who would paint him as a coward if he did the right thing and withdrew from Viet Nam. He sent 55,000 Americans to their deaths to pay for his ego. Obama could not bear to make himself vulnerable to conservatives who would accuse him of having blood on his hands if any Americans died in a terrorist attack which, in their fantasy world, could have been prevented with the NSA’s massive surveillance program.
This is not an exaggeration or hyperbole: 55,000 American young men died because Lyndon Johnson couldn’t bear the thought that Republicans would call him a coward or a defeatist. And that is the essence of Republican politics: they didn’t require that Johnson put on a backpack and boots and go into the jungles of Viet Nam and shoot a few Viet Cong to prove his manhood. No, no, no, because Republicans would never send themselves there to do that. No, what they demanded is that he be big and brave and send someone else to get shot at and killed and maimed, so he could sleep at night knowing his manhood was secure.
Obama’s motivation is similar: he can’t bear the idea of being soft on terrorism, so he is extra harsh, assassinating targets without the slightest process, due or otherwise, and refusing to act against administration officials who conducted torture and arbitrary seizure and imprisonment– and there are a lot of really repulsive former administration officials in that category. He just couldn’t bear it. But nobody says, “I can’t bear to prosecute people who look like me and live like me and work in the same buildings”. They say, “it would be too complicated, too difficult. It would raise constitutional issues. Executive privilege. They had good intentions. It would set a bad precedent. It would tie up prosecutors for ages”. The same reasons they give for not prosecuting individuals at the big banks and brokerages who clearly defrauded Americans of billions of dollars.
What makes it all even more stunning is the fact that so many people in the Bush administration — conservative Republicans all!– were absolutely convinced that the program was illegal and unconstitutional. Many of them even resigned posts at the NSA rather than participate in a program they absolutely believed was wrong. The Bush Administration persecuted them, sending the FBI to search their homes and confiscate their home computers and terrorize their families.
And then the Democrat, the liberal progressive Democrat, comes into office and not only tolerates the continued violation of the constitution– he increases it! He goes further. He even approves the assassinations of Americans living abroad.
The contrast between Obama’s complete and abject surrender to the paranoids who run the intelligence services and his campaign speeches is heart-breaking. It is heart-breaking because he raised the hopes of people who believed passionately that it was possible to bring decency and good sense and wisdom to the White House by electing this elegant, articulate, visionary young senator. Raised those hopes so high, and then crushed them.
So even if some politician launched a campaign for the presidency next year and vowed that he would stop the NSA from warrantless spying on every American, you could never believe that he would actually do it. He might believe it himself for a while, but then there would be a moment when he realizes he might actually win the election, and a meeting in the White House before he takes office, and he would be surrounded by high-ranking officials in the intelligence gathering community and they would solemnly insist that Americans will die and he will be blamed if he doesn’t immediately reverse himself, and a moment at home alone at night when he considers a headline blaming a terrorist attack on the inadequate manhood of the man in the hood.
Are you listening, Rand Paul? He says what Obama said, but I can picture Michael Hayden sitting in an office while an aide discusses Paul’s vision of a surveillance-less future… and laughing.
More on the NSA warrantless surveillance program.
How the FBI really protects Americans from “terrorist threats”.
Canadian law on “unreasonable” search and seizure.
A brilliant documentary on the NSA’s warrantless surveillance programs.
Very, very depressing to see that the New York Times had the story about the secret surveillance program and was about to publish it when the White House called senior editors and the publisher to a meeting and used the old “blood on your hands” canard to convince them not to publish.
South Carolina is considering a law prohibiting law enforcement agencies from collecting GPS data from cell phones without a warrant. This is a news item. It should not be. It is absurd that any state should pass a law to protect a right that is already guaranteed in the constitution (the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure).
I read about this this evening– in Reddit, I believe– and then I couldn’t find it in any news source anywhere. Maybe it was an error.