Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Universal Surveillance: a Bad Bargain
The outcry and the congressional hearings about the NSA surveillance prompt the question: Which do we Americans value higher, our freedoms or our security? The Bush administration is offering us a bargain: give up our privacy with regard to phone calls, e-mail, and perhaps postal mail and our government will protect us from terrorist attacks. It seems that many Americans are willing to accept that deal. After all, what does an honest person have to hide? Besides, if we all know that Big Brother is taping our phone conversations, intercepting and reading our e-mail, and opening our regular mail, we can be careful not to say or write anything that might incriminate us. What’s the problem?
The problem is that the bargain is phony. Even with all the surveillance, our government can not give us absolute protection from future terrorist attacks. If we know that a government agent is reading our mail and eavesdropping on our phone conversations, the terrorists will know that too. What will be gained, in the long run, by all this secret snooping?
As a matter of common sense, as well as thousands of years of experience, we know that terrorist acts, as well as other crimes, can not be prevented. Criminals can not be stopped from robbing banks. Thieves can not be stopped from stealing. All that can be done is to capture, try, convict, and punish criminals after their crimes have been committed. It is impossible to know everything. Yet, the policy of the administration seems to be to try to know everything by snooping on everyone. There is some basic law of human behavior, analogous to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics, which prevents the acquisition of all the knowledge it would take to prevent any terrorist attack in the future.
The problem is that the bargain is phony. Even with all the surveillance, our government can not give us absolute protection from future terrorist attacks. If we know that a government agent is reading our mail and eavesdropping on our phone conversations, the terrorists will know that too. What will be gained, in the long run, by all this secret snooping?
As a matter of common sense, as well as thousands of years of experience, we know that terrorist acts, as well as other crimes, can not be prevented. Criminals can not be stopped from robbing banks. Thieves can not be stopped from stealing. All that can be done is to capture, try, convict, and punish criminals after their crimes have been committed. It is impossible to know everything. Yet, the policy of the administration seems to be to try to know everything by snooping on everyone. There is some basic law of human behavior, analogous to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics, which prevents the acquisition of all the knowledge it would take to prevent any terrorist attack in the future.
