“Because they can, Dad”
Doug writing on the Snowdon thread left this nicely written text
“You do not have to harbour secret, revolutionary thoughts to be frightened and shell-shocked by the behaviour of the American government to those it feels act or may act against its current, and very malleable, interests. I was a supporter of the US of A despite its loudness, crass consumerism and its swagger. The US has dragged the rest of the world into the 21st century kicking and screaming. If not for the American attitude of “get-er-done-now” we’d be living in a British-European way of status quo of perhaps the 1930s. Not that would necessarily be bad, but I doubt that I’d be typing on an iPad mini using a Bluetooth keyboard in a restaurant right now.
Yet that brashness and control in my opinion has, since the 1980s,
morphed into a hostile, us-vs-them attitude – indeed, Bush was explicit in this when he said that we were either with him or against him in his first “war on terror” in 1991. Perhaps that situation always existed (Guatemala, Argentina spring to mind) but it wasn’t so blatant. Or pervasive. Perhaps the pervasiveness is not a new development of attitude but of the same internet, computer-in-a-restaurant that I mentioned above.
My eight-year-old son, responding to my question as to why the schoolyard bullies did what they did, explained them and probably the most powerful nation in the world: “Because they can, Dad”. If a child understands humanity correctly, as I unfortunately have come to believe, he has posed the situation that requires us, demands us, to oppose authoritarian surveillance especially in our own nation, and support Snowden’s actions. If all it takes for a bully to bully is the knowledge that he “can”, then we must stop him from even thinking he can. And stop him every day of our lives, because it is only the belief that he is unable to spy, to arrest, to execute and invade that prevents him from doing so.
The German General Staff operated long before the rest of the world in creating plans to invade and defend their territories and those around them, with partners and without. Arguably it lead to wars when conditions developed to favour one of the hypothetical scenarios (WWI) but its concept was that of constant preparedness. Is that what American has done, has taken the concept of constant preparedness to the global level with the power of technology, and is now acting on “positive” scenarios? I suspect that is the case.
America – and its new-best-buddy Britain (how else to retain power in a post-Empire world?) – speak of freedoms, but the freedoms are not now those of the common people to mind their own business, to create their own lives. The freedoms of importance are those of national action. Blair described the FOI legislation as the worst decision of his political life, as it limited the exercise of “good government”. Meaning weaselling your way to get what you want by means that would not be acceptable to the electorate if they knew what was going on. How stunningly cynical is that! Canada is not so far behind except for its relative lack of wealth and organization. Freedom to act at a national level has always been the goal of nations, of course, and essentially for business reasons, but never has democratic values been so clearly breached ….. against its own citizens.
The War Against Terror has evolved into the War For Control. Positive control. “Report suspect activity” said the lighted billboard on the interstate in New Jersey when I drove to the beach a few years ago. And nobody was outraged, perplexed pehaps, but not outraged. After all, THEY weren’t acting suspiciously. (I wanted to report my neighbour for cutting his grass in a criss-cross, tartan pattern that made me think he was a Martian in love with grass and the Scots, but my girlfriend stopped me.) That sign was 1984 in 2005.
Widespread, constant surveillance. What a crock! It doesn’t find the Mafia, it doesn’t find the Bernie Madoffs, it doesn’t find the drug dealers or perverts that parasitize our communities, but it is supposed to find the disaffected almost-man with a vague grudge against, well, everyone. Is that really what it is intended to do? Or, really, to lie there like a leopard in the tall grass, until something or someone – like an annoying political challenger – walks by.
In other words, until YOU become one of THEM.”
— Original comment here.
Tim comments, criss cross grass like so much has a good deal to do with toleration, where the thin line of acceptability is moral, about good behaviour on both sides, as much about not unreasonably imposing on others.
The Snowden matter puzzles me because he has done little but confirm what any reasonable tech has assumed was so for many years. It’s the lashing out against a messenger which gives the game away, and note this is the antithesis of “because they can”, are doing exactly what Doug considers right except reversed where rightly the state should do it to it’s own too. An arbiter for regimes is the size of the prison population, still a matter of passive or aggressive.
Tim
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
Good Read!
Nice essay.
It is a mistake to break this down in terms of nations. It depends on the faction in power, and those factions are international in scope. Look at Britain. When do the worst domestic abuses of power occur?
I would suggest that abuses of power are intrinsic in human affairs. The worst ones occur when the watchdogs are silent. And, that occurs when they are ideologically aligned with the party in power.
Wrong Bush – George Herbert Walker Bush ran the 1991 war in which my daughter played a part. “W” (George W Bush) used the “yer with us or against us” in the runup to the current war on terror in November of 2001. Laura Bush (wife of W) chided him (reportedly) for the statement saying “Are you gonna get’em, Bushie?” or words to that effect, to call attention to his Hollywoodesque bravado.
Yes – believe it or not we have had two Bush’s as president and yet a third Bush is considering a run for the office. I’m a bit tired of such presidential experiments and hope we can find a true well-adjusted and honorable person to fill the job. No more gimmicks like race, gender, family ties, or celebracy as qualifications. Future candidates need a brain.
I am a big fan of the good that has come from the Snowden leaks.
Modern tech and connectedness has made detailed monitoring and NWO possible for the first time. If “they can”, they will unless suitable counterforces arise. Will spontaneous technically-enhanced resistance arise? Is it implicit in the flow of views and information exemplified by this blog, WUWT, and others? We may hope so.
Just finished watching ‘Enemy of the State’ (Will Smith 1998) on BBC 1.
Interesting coincidence with the Snowden story so much in the news. Even allowing for Hollywood exaggeration it is a bit scary.
Free press and internet are essential for individual liberty and the advancement of cultures and thought stuck in the early years of the post – Roman era.
dp thanks for the correction on the Bushs (Bushes?).
I have a lot of thoughts, I like to point out, and some of them turn out to be factually correct.
In the late 1930s the Social Credit government of Alberta Province, Canada passed legislation to control the press.
In the 1938 opinion that struck down the provincial law, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada said that the constitution of Canada was based on the democratic character of the UK and therefore controlling the Canadian press is unconstitutional.
I am wondering if, when the government of Canada is challenged for invading the privacy of email and other communications, the Supreme Court will still be able to point to the UK as a model of democracy?
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2497823
Group to sue Obama administration
Doug – to avoid a knotted tongue in describing the two Bush presidencies we refer to them as Bush 41 and Bush 43, giving their number in the rank of presidents. Clinton was #42, but was also our first “black” president as his legend grows with time and our first verified two-timing president, and Obama is our second “first” black president. Clearly we’re not good with numbers over here. If Hillary Clinton becomes president she will be the first female president, first verified two-timed former first lady, and Clinton 45, and on inauguration day, the oldest sitting president in history. Clinton 42 becomes our first “first gentleman” and first former president who is a presidential spouse.
I hope that clears it up, some.
It sounds like a chant: Bush – Clinton – Bush – Obama – Clinton
Obama is obviously not a natural fan of infringements on civil liberties. The fact that he now supports them suggests to me that he has learned classified information that indicates to him that the information gathering program in question is necessary. The fact that Snowden claimed he could get anyone’s phone conversations does not mean that was a part of his job. The phone information under discussion is time of call and who placed or received the call, not contents of the call. Though I would prefer that the government not keep such information, I prefer even more that it act to prevent terrorist acts that would kill people, disrupt the economy, etc.
Any information sweep that does not pick up on drug dealers, arsonists-for-hire, child abusers, pyramid stock scammers …. and the Boston bombers …. isn’t about to find sophisticated terrorists. So either these connections between people they are looking for are completely and solely foolishly targeted on the one group who is working hard to stay below the standard radar, or the government really isn’t interested. Which leads you to wonder what files they are creating, because you know that educated professionals given a mandate to look for interesting or odd stuff WILL fill file folders with something, if only to justify their lives to themselves.
It all seems like Hoover and his paper files. Maybe he figured out the bad guys, but he certainly figured out awkward stuff on the good guys that could be used for his own benefit later. And also note that Hoover didn’t get rid of the Mafia etc.
I suspect that the great information trolling is a complete farce because it is not directed at the groups it could do something about, but will be directed at whomever becomes a Person of Interest at any given moment. It is not that the idea is without merit, but that in practice it is ineffective for the Big Fish of interest, and a complete police state tool for the Little Fish for whom it will work … and so politically becomes difficult to use. But not impossible.
The connections of interest would naturally end up to be between politicians, crime figures, big business types of this country and others, and especially those of a military bent. Those are the ones who can do stuff and believe they have the right to create the world they want/need. But how long do you think a project proposal to sweep through the monied, power-holding class would survive? Iraqi/Libyan/Iranian/South African/Syrian connections to the American military and political figures … gee, they would have picked up on Oliver North and Ronald Reagan, I suppose ….
Maybe, but would we have heard about it? Just like Hoover and his files.
Stephen Pruett,
“Obama is obviously not a natural fan of infringements on civil liberties. ”
First, please give us links to information that leads you to believe this.
Second, his actions in reference to the recent Trayvon Martin shooting would show exactly the opposite. He has no problem stepping on INNOCENT people to promote his agenda. He is a chronic liar, has promoted voter fraud through Acorn and other organizations, and his policies have been aimed at destroying the society we know and creating the conditions for a tyranny.
If you don’t believe George Zimmerman was innocent we can take that discussion elsewhere.
I agree with Doug Proctor insofar as I doubt the collecting of this data provides the returns hoped for or claimed. The distractions of collecting false positives leads to intrusions into the lives of ‘little people’ where the collecting agencies are not competent to distinguish them from the, likely smarter, bad guys hiding in the false negatives.
I also have a theory that people and institutions that are generally good (competent) at their expressed job description spend little very little time pursuing avenues that they obviously shouldn’t be, and that should allow all of us to sleep easier. TallBloke being harassed under terrorist laws isn’t just a problem for him, it’s an indication of the expense and wasteful incompetence of the security agencies involved (even if they received orders from above.)
But, as Doug also points out, it’s not new. Neither is it exclusive to the USA or the UK. Snowdon has the problem that, on the face of it, he has broken the explicit requirements and trust necessary for working with a state security agency. So the government in the US easily accesses information that is freely traded commercially. So what? Well for Snowdon the outlook is bleak, even if he does believe it was his moral duty to act as he did. Plenty of others are not even slightly surprised by the revelations. And The Grauniad also reported how Microsoft engineers secretly work with agencies to produce spying software. Not much surprise for me there either (and why does every browser seem to run SO much faster when it is newly installed, but become so much slower within a few days 😉 )
That secret courts exist to collect data beyond the supposed checks and balances of the constitution may be something else. There is an interesting discussion at The Air Vent: