by Joseph P. Tartaro Executive Editor
Whether Edward Snowden is a “traitor” as some claim or just a “whistleblower” who has alerted the American public and media to the amazingly extensive scope of the government’s high-tech surveillance of people and the media remains to be seen.
People on the both political right and left have condemned him. Among those labeling him as traitor, if not a spy for the Chinese government, are such notables as former Vice President Dick Cheney, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and Sen. Lindsey Graham (RSC).
All three have great pro-gun credential which may lead many in the firearms community to see Snowden as an enemy of the state.
However, there are many officials and commentators on the left, yes, anti-gunners, too, who hold the same view of Snowden.
Complicating the response to Snowden’s revelations is the fact that the American public seems almost evenly divided in praising and condemning Snowden, who is apparently incommunicado in Hong Kong.
Whatever the outcome of any investigation, it would appear that the government, the Patriot Act, first authorized by Congress during the administration of George W. Bush and reauthorized by Congress during the Administration of Barack Obama, is part of the problem. Even more chilling is the fact that the National Security Administration (NSA) hired a young geek to work in its massive surveillance program who had dropped out of high school and community college, had his military career cut short and gave him a top security clearance for highly classified information.
Then, when Snowden left the NSA, he was hired at a reported salary of $200,000 a year by one of the many commercial contractors that do so much of what the government has been authorized to do. The administration, the NSA and Congress can claim that the government doesn’t have enough money or people to properly supervise its own or outside contractors, but that seems a poor excuse.
The NSA and its outside contractors are charged with the important task of keeping the nation secure from all kinds of dangers in a world threatened by lunatic terrorists. And maybe they have already done a great job of thwarting some of the attacks that have been planned by those who would do us harm. But it seems a rather poor way to run such an important function of government.
Snowden’s revelations to The Guardian and other media outlets comes at a time when the government is also tapping the phones and computer records of other media outlets in what seems a violation of First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections. It is under such circumstances that one is caused to wonder who is watching the watchers.
The whole thing is reminiscent of the 1998 movie “Enemy of the State.” That film was a techno-thriller 15 years ago in which the villains were the massive surveillance capabilities of the government corrupted by some bad apples in the US intelligence community.
Reviewers at the time considered the plot far-fetched and paranoid. One reviewer considered it the “revenge of the nerds if they had the capability.” Innocent people were swept up and endangered by the then futuristic scope of NSA capabilities in tracking not just telephone and computer communications, but every movement of subjects deemed threats to the government.
The whole movie theme with all its surveillance special effects doesn’t seem so far fetched anymore.
Yes, many in Congress claim we don’t have anything to worry about. The whole NSA apparatus, including its outside contractors, is all under the eye of House and Senate committees, they say.
Most significantly, they assured us in the week immediately following the bombshell revelations that the people with the aluminum foil caps maybe aren’t as nutty as some would suspect.
“Security” is the justification for all of the surveillance. They (the government) are doing it to protect the people.
But that same security justification has been used throughout history, including by Communist Russia’s MKVD and related alphabet agencies and the Nazi’s SS and Gestapo. The very names of such groups have usually included the word “security.” One thing has become quite clear.
The government is really listening in, maybe not to everybody, but to anybody they suspect might be of interest. And not necessarily with the niceties of a warrant or other judicial review.
The revelations regarding the enormous scope of the NSA surveillance operations will probably continue to provide new and maybe even less reassuring news. One item, that may or may not be connected, involved a report of a reporter’s computers hacked and phones tapped.
According to the Associated Press, a subject of other government surveillance and interference, CBS News was able to confirm that a computer used by Washington reporter Sharyl Adkissob was breached by an unknown “sophisticated” intruder.
At the time this was discopvered last winter, Adkisson was reporting exclusively on the government response to the terrorist attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Gunowners among our readers may recall that Adkisson was the same reporter for CBS who played such an important part in bringing the government’s Fast and Furious fiasco into the realm of mainstream media news.
CBS reported that Adkisson’s work and home computers had been breached in such a way that they could be turned on and off by the unknown hacker and files could be deleted without her knowledge.
Perhaps this was merely a random intrusion through the mysterious portals of our high tech age.
Neither Adkisson nor CBS claimed that the mysterious intrusion was by the government, but coming just days after the Snowden revelations, it is further cause for concern. If it wasn’t our government, was it another? Or was it just some random hacker and code writer’s way of spending some idle moments.
Nineteenth century novelists like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote thrillers based on technology run amok.
George Orwell’s “1984” brought things up to a century later.
But Snowden’s revelations may make all of the Big Brother and high tech paranoia scenarios appear tame with respect to the privacy and other rights of honest citizens.
