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Terror for Domestic Repression
Friday, February 05, 2010 - by
Staff Report
America has slid back again into its own special brand of terrorism-derangement syndrome. Each time this condition recurs, it presents with more acute and puzzling symptoms. It's almost impossible to identify the cause, and it's doubtful there's a cure. The entire forensic team from House would need a full season to unravel the mystery of what it is about the American brain that renders us more terrified of terrorists today than we were five years ago and less trusting of government policies to protect us. The real problem is that too many people tend to follow GOP cues about how hopelessly unsafe America is, and they've yet again convinced themselves that we are mere seconds away from an attack. Moreover, each time Republicans go to their terrorism crazy-place, they go just a little bit farther than they did the last time, so that things that made us feel safe last year make us feel vulnerable today. Policies and practices that were perfectly acceptable just after 9/11, or when deployed by the Bush administration, are now decried as dangerous and reckless. The same prominent Republicans who once celebrated open civilian trials for Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," now claim that open civilian trials endanger Americans (some Republicans have now even gone so far as to try to defund such trials). Republicans who once supported closing Guantanamo are now fighting to keep it open. And one GOP senator, who like all members of Congress must take an oath to uphold the Constitution, has voiced his concern that the Christmas bomber really needed to be "properly interrogated" instead of being allowed to ask for a lawyer. - Slate
Dominant Social Theme: Those Republicans are to blame.
Free-Market Analysis: Maybe Slate has not realized that Republicans and Democrats are basically equal opportunity offenders when it comes to the alarming erosion of civil rights and privacy in the United States. While damage to the protections provided by the Constitution to US citizens accelerated dramatically under the Bush administration, the Obama administration has acceded to the trend (which continues unabated) - not surprisingly given that there is little difference between the two parties at this point.
The establishment of Homeland Security, the endless false terror alarms and the constant pressure for more and quicker spying on criminals and terrorists is turning the US into a kind of quasi-police state. The FBI's warrantless wiretapping, where large swathes of the public may be serially wiretapped and not know it, could well destroy what is left of the market-based entrepreneurial spirit of that country. In the past it was said of even the least regulated Western countries that "anyone could be arrested for anything." But these days the authorities in America have the means as well as the law to destroy almost anyone they wish. It is never enough, however. Here is a recent article from CNET reporting on yet more American intel and police demands:
Police want backdoor to Web users' private data ... Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant. But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.
CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to "exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process" through an encrypted, police-only "nationwide computer network."
The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.
But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general's report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans' telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.
Some companies already have police-only Web interfaces. Sprint Nextel operates what it calls the L-Site, also known as the "legal compliance secure Web portal." The company even has offered a course that "will teach you how to create and track legal demands through L-site. Learn to navigate and securely download requested records." Cox Communications makes its price list for complying with police requests public; a 30-day wiretap is $3,500.
The pressure that America's largest communications companies are under to cooperate with America's vast intel nexus is considerable and ongoing. The eventual result must be a seamless net of public/private surveillance in which the resources of America's still-innovative corporate enterprises are continually turned on the American public at the behest of the police.
The convergence of public policing and corporate resources is an inevitable sign of civic degradation. It means that all levels of society have been turned inward - on themselves - to facilitate the deterrence of criminal malfeasance. The result, unfortunately, is that the state can criminalize almost any activity and now has the wherewithal, increasingly, to enforce even the maddest conceits. Whether it is white-collar crime, the war on drugs or terrorism itself, the ability to gather endless amounts of evidence in order to find something - anything - that is provable in court is facilitated by this dismaying trend.
There is more of course. The recent insistence of American government intel spokesmen that Americans abroad can be targeted for assassination if they are deemed supportive of terrorism (and thus migrate to the status of "enemy") can be seen as part of a larger strategy aimed at suppressing DOMESTIC dissent. Those who are anti-war, or even against the current economic reign, may eventually find it prudent to move abroad given the wiretapping and other intrusive security arrangements increasingly being pursued domestically. But in such situations, US citizens (and eventually those from other countries) will face the uncertainties that stem from the US government's continued use of rendition and no doubt even more harassing activities. Again, it would seem, the mechanisms (illegal or not) purportedly developed to fight the war on terror inevitably are turned against those who would voice disapproval within the ambit of their own societies.
Conclusion: Yet, having written all this, it remains our humble estimation that the rapid degradation of civil liberties in America and in the West will eventually be counteracted. Unlike past episodes of repression, the current environment must contend with the liberating effects of the Internet, which is constantly and inevitably exposing the justifications that are being used to install the foundations of a surveillance society. Of course many still do not believe that the Internet will truly have an impact on what's occurring, especially when it comes to the erosion of civil liberties. We think it will.
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Posted by Tutche on 2/5/2010 5:38:55 AM
Important article!
Posted by Eric Parks on 2/5/2010 7:40:02 AM
"Who like all members of Congress must take an oath to uphold the Constitution"
I do not support either side of the imaginary aisle, but weren't the democrats the ones who really started the whole living document idea so that the constitution could be interpreted to mean anything at any time? Surely, The democrat writing the article doesn't want a constructionist view to take hold. Like most, the slate writer simply wishes the amendable piece of paper to be construed his way. Get in line, pal. What do you think this is... a republic?
Posted by Bill Ross on 2/5/2010 8:15:55 AM
"It's almost impossible to identify the cause, and it's doubtful there's a cure."
Take your pick:
Machiavelli: Falsely frame issues for educationally / media subverted populations to create the false appearance of "necessity" (no other viable options).
ORCharles Darwin: Survival is highest motivation. Threaten it and you control the choices of your prey.
http://www.cli.gs/DarwinReconsidered
Do agree that the internet has a key role in providing accurate information which allows people to correctly choose (defend themselves):
http://www.cli.gs/IntelligentChoice
But, the real Achilles heel of the predators behind this is the costs they impose on the productive (prey) who are forced to redeploy resources (time / energy) from productivity to defense and, ultimately, rebellion. The very success of predators dooms them, as proven by the grim reaper of "Mathematics of Rule":
http://www.cli.gs/MathematicsOfRule
our elites (predators) are FOOLS. They believe achieving our collective servitude is a matter of finding a socially acceptable collection of memes (frauds) since "consent of the governed" is absolutely necessary. Their very success, destroys "consent of the governed" dooming them and us. When prey perish, so do their parasites.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
"When prey perish, so do their parasites".
This seems to be escaping the elite currently.
Posted by Puzzled on 2/5/2010 8:51:33 AM
FDR Said" We have nothing to fear but, Fear itself!
Well in my 70 years, fear has played a role in my Life. But No More. This is the year I get a hand gun and a permit to use it. Anyone comming onto my property will have to crash through a locked gate, I am feeling more than ever, the bad guys are already here! It is our Government! Puzzled-no-more
Posted by Bill Ross on 2/5/2010 8:59:29 AM
Escaping the elite currently"
Never underestimate your enemy, especially intelligence. Elites are goal seeking and Occam's razor (simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one) is very clear. The only explanation that fits all of the facts is that Malthusians / Luddites are driving events.
They are dealing with their perceived problem that there are too many of us and the "reality based constituency" and industrial civilization has to go. Their end game appears to be feudalism (ignorant serfs) ruled by enlightened (and properly educated) elites.
When the ultimate social / economic collapse comes, they appear to hope that we will blame shift (assign consequences to innocent others) and kill and prey on each other en-masse. Anyone who appears to be surviving will be prey to rampaging hordes of frustrated "entitled". Pandora's box is wide open.
Posted by Steve on 2/5/2010 9:06:03 AM
An aspect of "added insecurity" for me has been the almost complete absence of common sense as it applies to our national security. We do not hear about rounding up and sending those whose visas are from questionable countries - where the visitors have overstayed.
We (USA security) bends over backwards trying to avoid being seen as "profiling", yet that is exactly what Israel has been doing for years (their system seems to work rather well). And there is no widely publicized method for citizens to report suspicious behavior except to those wonderful (sometimes) folks at the end of a 911 call.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
"And there is no widely publicized method for citizens to report suspicious behavior ... "
Maybe because there are actually very few terrorists evincing suspicious behavior in the US?
Posted by Kaydell Bowles on 2/5/2010 11:44:42 AM
I disagree with the synopsis of this article "Terror or Domestic Repression. You nowhere state that the current administration "does not believe there are such people of terrorists and call them man made disasters."
The current Administration's policies have now the procedures to handle all such terrorist as citizens and not as enemy combatants. We still take off shoes, old grandmas are searched and screened and now full body searches but cannot do profiling.
Hence the only satisfactory to suit all parties is political correctness. i.e Domestic Repression!
Reply from the Daily Bell:
Not sure what you are driving at, but agree the US is seeing increased governmental authoritarianism.
Posted by Scott Cherf on 2/5/2010 11:48:11 AM
A well written problem statement, but the predicted resolution (insurrection) seems extreme and also undesirable. The country does need change but legislative change is still within our grasp. Although you've spoken critically of the Tea Party and its fractious membership, it has given a voice to organized descent and it has been noted before that politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Should it develop for example that those seeking religious freedom of expression were to join forces with those seeking individual liberty and security in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, a larger constituency might still be formed.
Part of the problem is that the 'cause' lacks corporate sponsorship and its my opinion that arises from the fact that corporate entities have largely already protected themselves against warrantless searches of their proprietary communications; beginning in the 1980's companies recognized the need to secure intellectual property and deployed private secured networks to that end.
Since then advances have been made in securing traffic that continue to protect information traveling over public networks; technologies such as VPN and hard encryption.While it's true that an electronic key can be made to fit any electronic lock, those technologies make it much more difficult to cast large nets like the one being proposed in this article.
Likewise, they are available to the common person who has enough savvy to research their application and they are not expensive. Public Key Encryption systems are available (and occasionally standard) on current personal computer systems.
With a small investment of time they can make it much more difficult, perhaps even prohibitively so, to go on 'fishing expeditions'. They can't of course stop the NSA, but they can be used to make sure anyone who wants to read your private communications without your consent is going to have to work at it, and likely would require the use of specialized equipment that would make the endeavor visible.
So, until the laws written into the Bill of Rights are enforced (or the revolution happens), it would be good for every concerned citizen to begin using hard encryption. The more who do it, the more difficult it will be for those seeking to violate the US Constitution, and in the end that is what we're all trying to do isn't it?
Reply from the Daily Bell:
We certainly never stated that the solution to the current governmental authoritarianism was insurrection, certainly not of the violent kind. We do believe that the Internet is a two-edged sword and that it can - and will be - used increasingly to keep track of governmental actions and to monitor the bureaucracy and the police as the authorities grown increasingly desperate to stay in control. We agree with you about encryption.
Posted by Scott Cherf on 2/5/2010 12:29:02 PM
"We certainly never stated that the solution to the current governmental authoritarianism was insurrection"
My apologies, you didn't. I've been reading quite a few editorials lately on this subject and I merged them altogether in my response. Some authors have not been so sanguine on the subject but yours is not an example of the doomsday camp.
Posted by Beverlee on 2/5/2010 1:46:29 PM
Politicians will always fail and the Founders knew it. The Supreme Court is another matter. Were it simply to do its job, many of the issues raised here would be remedied. "Heller" (2d Amendment) and "Citizens United" (1st Amendment free speech - political), represent a start.
At least 10 more solid Constitutional decisions are needed beginning with Delegation, then the Interstate Commerce Clause, and going from there ... Even the Fed could become an endangered species ... In my dreams. As you say, with this new printing press anything is possible.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
Yes, it is astonishing - in the worst sense - that none of the oppressive powers provided to the FBI, CIA, etc. are appealed to the Supreme Court which presumably would have to find them unconstitutional. Is there a penumbra in the world that can justify the FBIs existence, let alone the powers it has to spy domestically - certainly its expansion overseas? And once the Supreme Court - in its fearless, non-ideological way - disposed of the unconstitutional excrecenses of the military industrial complex (as well as the decisions you have noted) it could go after the lamentable bifurcation it somehow discerned between "commercial" speech and non-commercial speech. And then, perhaps, it could, in a sense, dissolve itself - limit its decisions to advisory status and let citizens work out their own manner of freedom.
Posted by Jeff Lang on 2/5/2010 5:35:27 PM
Powers that be should know that we too are watching... more and more of us every day, by the millions, very closely. We grow because we struggle, we learn and we overcome. Keep up the good work
Posted by John Byrnes on 2/6/2010 12:52:39 PM
Last Tuesday, Directors of the CIA, FBI and National Intelligence declared that an attack by Al Qaeda in the next 3 to 6 months "is certain!"
Leon Panetta, CIA Director announced, "The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect."
Panetta's statement does not take into account the ability to identify any terrorist whose goal it is to give up their life for a cause. Only when you are observing measurable emerging aggression can you identify a terrorist before they effect their violence.
The Center for Aggression Management discovered 15 years ago that there were two kinds of aggression: adrenaline-driven Primal Aggression and intent-driven Cognitive Aggression. The Primal Aggressor, in the extreme, is "red-faced and ready to explode," while the Cognitive Aggressor (the terrorist) is not.
When a person, regardless of the culture, gender, education or position, rises to the level where their goal is to give up their life for a cause, their body looses animation and we see the "thousand-yard stare."
But it is more than this, the whole body and behavior loses animation and this is how we can identify them.
The problem is that security and law enforcement are still looking for the Primal Aggressor (red-faced and ready to explode). Of course they are finding it difficult to detect these terrorist; a terrorist is a Cognitive Aggression; they are looking for the wrong person! You can read more at
http://blog.AggressionManagement.com
Reply from the Daily Bell:
You imply the authorities are not using up-to-date techniques to determine the difference between terrorists and grandmothers.
Most interesting, thanks.
Posted by MetaCynic on 2/7/2010 5:50:37 PM
I too am hopeful that instant communication and the rapid dissemination of information facilitated by the internet will continue to expose the growing police state envelopment and eventually force its rollback.
However I fear that the pro government bias of public schools and the mass media has so crippled people's ability to link liberty to prosperity, that we as a nation must hit economic rock bottom before the citizenry finally sees the obvious and clamors for a repeal of liberty snuffing laws.
A serious obstacle to recovering our liberty, and growing daily, is the thousands of new laws, mostly petty, passed each year to stand alongside scores of thousands of existing laws. Each law prescribes some punishment for its violation, usually involving a fine. This is how the political class is funding its growing greed. Everyone of us, innocently going about our daily lives, is at all times unwittingly in violation of some law for which we can be fined and even jailed.
It is conceivable that expanding government surveillance powers will allow the police to silence dissidents by selectively targeting them for violation of all kinds of obscure laws. Furthermore, if we now need permission to fly and are subject to No Fly lists, then why not No Shop, No Bank, No Drive, No Work, etc. lists?
A dissident can be silenced without even being charged and convicted of a non-crime. He needn't even be massaged by the police as in the old days. An anonymous bureaucrat can ruin him with a few keystrokes! Businesses both large and small will readily cooperate in enforcing lists since they themselves are at all times in violation of all kinds of laws and regulations for which they will be threatened with prosecution.
Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, we are drowning in a growing flood of unjust laws passed by lawmakers compelled to live up to their title. Most will still be on the books and enforceable when the internet facilitated Enlightenment arrives. How will they be repealed? Considering how long it took to repeal the 55mph national speed limit, one by one will take forever. Or will a kind wizard banish them for us with his magic wand?
Reply from the Daily Bell:
Hm-mm ... A wizard called "spontaneous order?" - see Hayek. Don't be a cynic! ...
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