Where We're Going

William Binney talks about Stellar Wind.

Click the picture for the video at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html?_r=1&ref=opinion.

A little bit tangential:  Anyone considering or currently working in a government/military agency, who is the type of person who would have a problem with the government using the fruits of your labor against your fellow citizens (or you, for that matter), would probably be well advised to seek other employment.

Binney tells the audience that he created this program for the US military/government to collect data that would help us against our enemies, and "they took those programs and they turned them on you."  He says he's sorry.  He didn't intend that. 

I believe him.  And now he's paying a pretty high price in an unexpected turn of events for him.  With any amount of forethought, however, it could have been - should have been - expected.  Ask any number of people who've tried to keep wild animals as "pets".   There's always that possible day in the future where it turns on you.  It's the nature of the beast.  It's not your friend.   

While I give the man kudos for coming out and reporting what's going on, I will never quite be able to excuse people who work for the government developing tools that can be used to suppress and annihilate because, wake up, that's what a government that requires those tools does with them.  And there is no reason to believe that it won't eventually use those tools against its own citizens (as if it's not bad enough it uses them against people in other countries).  In fact, there's every reason to believe that it will.  It's one thing to be a scientist or inventor working on some theoretical or even practical problem or idea and have the government take your work and twist it to military or tyrannical purposes, and yet another to work for an agency that already has those purposes.

It's not that I don't understand American citizens' desire to protect and further their own country's interests (above other countries'); it's that I don't understand how after centuries and centuries of war and devastation and oppression, they don't one day look up from their handywork and say, "Oh.  I see.  I'm just perpetuating evil."

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

To those who understand state surveillance as an abstraction, I will try to describe a little about how it has affected me. The United States apparently placed me on a “watch-list” in 2006 after I completed a film about the Iraq war. I have been detained at the border more than 40 times. Once, in 2011, when I was stopped at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and asserted my First Amendment right not to answer questions about my work, the border agent replied, “If you don’t answer our questions, we’ll find our answers on your electronics.”’ As a filmmaker and journalist entrusted to protect the people who share information with me, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to work in the United States. Although I take every effort to secure my material, I know the N.S.A. has technical abilities that are nearly impossible to defend against if you are targeted.

The 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which oversees the N.S.A. activities, are up for renewal in December. Two members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats, are trying to revise the amendments to insure greater privacy protections. They have been warning about “secret interpretations” of laws and backdoor “loopholes” that allow the government to collect our private communications. Thirteen senators have signed a letter expressing concern about a “loophole” in the law that permits the collection of United States data. The A.C.L.U. and other groups have also challenged the constitutionality of the law, and the Supreme Court will hear arguments in that case on Oct. 29.

Laura Poitras

If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to hide. Right? This is another disconnect I see with right wing politics. People claiming to be Conservatives say they want smaller government - they want government out of their personal affairs. But they want government in your reproductive affairs. And they're okay with having government collect all your personal information and search you every time you board a plane, because if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. I understand how they can rationalize having government involved in your reproductive affairs - because that's YOU, not them. But the other constitutes government infringement on THEIR privacy as well. And both constitute government empowerment over citizens' rights, which they claim not to want. I have no other response to them than, "Huh? Are you dishonest or just deluded?"