Shhh…They’re Listening

I’m not really much of a conspiracy theorist. I’d say odds are good we did in fact land on the moon in 1969, John F. Kennedy was shot by one man (Lee Harvey Oswald), and Elvis is, as he has been for some time, dead.

That being said, I’ve come to believe I must be going crazy. Or else everyone around me is. Or maybe just the government. I don’t know who it is yet, but somebody’s flown completely off their rocker.

In the last few days a bill, known as the Protect America Act, passed through the Senate and the House which makes it legal for the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to intercept, without a warrant, any telephone call or email message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is “reasonable belief” that one party is not in the United States.

Given my little understanding of the technology involved, and an even smaller understanding of the legalese, let me attempt to offer you a little history lesson (apologies if it’s more like history for dummies).

Following the Watergate scandal the government passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to govern domestic spying. When it was originally written, the act required anyone wanting to eavesdrop within the US to obtain a warrant. It didn’t apply to purely foreign communications, which the NSA could listen to and gather as they pleased.

But with new technology problems have arisen. With the arrival of telecommunications and the internet, a communication between, for example, London and Baghdad might be routed through the United States, making it off limits for government agents.

Naturally, this gap had to be closed, and it could have been a fairly simple fix. Just add an amendment to the FISA that made it legal to intercept foreign communications as they transited through the US. In fact, a bill was proposed that would do just this, complete with oversight mechanisms including FISA court review, periodic audits, and explicit provisions against purely domestic surveillance.

This wasn’t good enough, however, for the Bush administration. They wanted all of the power with none of the oversight, and by threatening to hold Congress hostage during their summer vacation (they usually take August off – wouldn’t that be nice?) until they got “a bill he (Bush) could sign,” Bush and friends bullied Congress into agreeing to a new act which, for all practical purposes, gives him the power of a Fidel Castro, a Kim Jung Il, or a Joseph Stalin.

Now, thanks to Protect America, all the NSA needs to listen in on every conversation you or I have is a “reasonable belief” by presidential croneys (the president appoints both the director of national intelligence and the attorney general) that you could possibly be talking to someone outside of this country. Government agencies simply don’t have the manpower or technical resources to sort through the billions upon billions of bits of data passing through America’s telecommunications systems (as reported by the New York Times; don’t take my word for it), let alone the capabilities to establish who is or is not communicating with foreigners. Plus, we’ve already seen that the government plays loose and fast with the concept of “reasonable belief” (WMDs, Guantanamo Bay), and with no one to answer to the government has awarded itself unchecked power. We have been ushered into a terrifying era of unprecedented governmental control, and I can assure you that the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

Think what you will about George W. Bush. I’m not trying to pass judgment. I don’t think he’s an evil man. He’s been placed in some difficult situations and it wouldn’t be fair to blame him for the majority of them.

But think about the repercussions of the Protect America Act. I’ve read 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. Let me tell you that this is how it all starts. Next thing you know we’ll all be taking Soma and speaking in Groupthink.

Maybe I’ve already said too much. Good luck and Godspeed.

Thanks for reading.