Monday, August 19, 2013

With "Protectors" Like This, Who Need Enemies?


A confluence of evidence emerged over the past week that the public's fear of "terrorism" (the ultimate in easily exploited boogeymen that seemingly no government in the world can resist) can and will be used against us. First came news that despite the US government's constant reassurances that there is judicial oversight of their domestic spying activities, the very courts they say are watching out for the public's interest admitted they have very little real power to do so. From the Washington Post:

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.

“The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.”
The larger issue at play within using "we're protecting you from terrorism" excuses for governmental over-reach and/or abuse, though, is the way such "anti-terrorism" sentiment can foreseeably be used to excuse any atrocity a government wishes to carry out. For example, the interim government in Egypt has begun re-branding their killing of over 1000 protesters last week as "a war against violent terrorists" and began chastising any foreign journalist who didn't report it as such. From The New York Times:
“One could be forgiven for saying that there is a coordinated campaign against the foreign journalists,” Matt Bradley, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, said Sunday in an interview with Al Jazeera’s English-language sister network. He described being pulled into an armored personnel carrier by soldiers rescuing him after a mob tackled him, tore at his clothes and took his notebook.

Coming at the end of a week when security forces killed more than 1,000 Morsi supporters in the streets, the push to control how the news media portray the violence is the latest sign of the government’s authoritarian turn, which its officials have justified as emergency measures to save Egypt from a coordinated campaign of violence by the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Scholars and human rights activists say they see signs of broad coordination between Egypt’s state and private media to drive home the same messages. After the first mass shooting following the military takeover killed more than 60 Morsi supporters at a sit-in, for example, television talk shows across the state and private media seemed to suggest that the Islamists might have deliberately provoked the violence to tarnish the military. Later, all seemed to discover that even Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain had argued for limiting human rights in the interest of protecting national security.

“There is very clear coordination,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher in Egypt for Human Rights Watch. “Forgetting what is true or not, it is interesting that you hear the same thing from everybody.”
Of course, that's Egypt, right...using anti-terrorism rhetoric and/or laws to excuse governmental abuse would never happen in more progressive countries, right?

Wrong.

Just yesterday came the chilling news that the UK government detained Glenn Greenwald's partner at Heathrow airport for 9 hours via what by all counts is a blatant abuse of a counter-terrorism law. Greenwald, as you may know, is the journalist for The Guardian who was contacted by Edward Snowden and who's been working carefully with his paper's editors to publish that story as conscientiously as possible according to most of the journalists I respect. His partner, David Michael Miranda, is a citizen of Brazil and not even a journalist (although he had been visiting a collaborator of Greenwald's on this story in Berlin and his trip was paid for by The Guardian). Whereas it's understandable the UK government (read: acting on request of the US government, imho) would use any option at their disposal to interrogate Miranda after he met with Greenwald's collaborator, it should be viewed as entirely unacceptable that they twisted a law designed to stop terrorists in order to do so. From The New York Times:

Mr. Miranda, Mr. Greenwald said, was told that he was being detained under Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act, which allows the authorities to detain someone for up to nine hours for questioning and to conduct a search of personal items, often without a lawyer, to determine possible ties to terrorism. More than 97 percent of people stopped under the provision are questioned for under an hour, according to the British government.

“What’s amazing is this law, called the Terrorism Act, gives them a right to detain and question you about your activities with a terrorist organization or your possible involvement in or knowledge of a terrorism plot,” Mr. Greenwald said. “The only thing they were interested in was N.S.A. documents and what I was doing with Laura Poitras. It’s a total abuse of the law.” He added: “This is obviously a serious, radical escalation of what they are doing. He is my partner. He is not even a journalist.”
Until the public begins to show a bit of backbone, governments will continue to abuse "anti-terrorism" rhetoric and laws that their sheepish, cowering citizens permit them to enact. It has always been obvious to me that with such laws in their toolkit, they would not be able to resist using them toward other, obviously authoritarian ends. They clearly have way too much power with such laws, and only the naivest of fools would believe such power will not corrupt them.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ed, Those 'protesters' were told weeks in advance to disperse. Furthermore, many of those 'protesters' killed Christians, burned churches, assaulted nuns, killed a taxi driver because he happened to be of a different faith, and so on. Some of them ARE terrorists in that respect.

I don't really 'get' your logic. You are telling us to be concerned about the government, but just a few months ago you were suggesting that citizens should not have guns (which is one Hell of a way to fend off an oppressive government if needed -- even if it is our own... the Founding Fathers understood that. Why can't you?).

I don't expect you to make my comment public. BUT I wish you would have enough backbone to say what you really mean. You hate Christians, you want BIG government as long as it provides you with your desires, you obviously support communist rhetoric at times based on statements you've made and exhibits you have promoted, and you voted, twice, for a President who has forced more executive orders and citizen assassinations than Bush ever did. Yet you don't say a damn word about that! You are a coward with blood on your hands!

People like you and Jerry Saltz ALL supported the Arab Spring, even when it was clear that Islamic extremists were using the momentum to oppress women and people of other faiths. I remember one of you saying that you wish something like the Arab Spring would happen in the US. You were not the only ones and I've yet to see anyone take those words back. That won't happen here, pal.

Why is it that so many New Yorkers gleefully submit to tyranny? Your lot has been doing it since before the revolution. A city of obedient cowards fixated on being controlled. Live that way if you want. I won't.


8/20/2013 02:55:00 AM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

A lot to shift through in that...most of it wild conjecture, but lets start with this: "You are telling us to be concerned about the government, but just a few months ago you were suggesting that citizens should not have guns."

You seem to have read a number of the posts here but not to have comprehended them. I've written of guns as something I believe citizens should have, with same recognitions of how deadly they can be and reasonable limits that correspond with the true nature of weapons (ie, I disagree the the 2nd Amendment covers semi-automatic weapons). But much more importantly, and where you might do a bit of the soul searching you're challenging me to do here, I am in no way suggesting an armed coup is the necessary response to the NSA over reach. What none of the gun advocates who seem to think their 3-4 firearms are all that stand between them and tyrannical slavery seem to appreciate is that the US military can kill them from half way around the world with a joystick and keypad. You need a much more up to date minuteman fantasy.

8/20/2013 08:45:00 AM  
Blogger Edward_ said...

Another of your points deserves comment: "Furthermore, many of those 'protesters' killed Christians, burned churches, assaulted nuns, killed a taxi driver because he happened to be of a different faith, and so on. Some of them ARE terrorists in that respect."

So you support a government retroactively re-branding the mass killing of people as a necessary action against terrorists? Just because some of the more than 1,000 dead can be "in that respect" be considered terrorists?

Live deluded that way if you want. I won't.

Also, you're simply pulling this straight out of your ass:

"You hate Christians, you want BIG government as long as it provides you with your desires, you obviously support communist rhetoric at times based on statements you've made and exhibits you have promoted, and you voted, twice, for a President who has forced more executive orders and citizen assassinations than Bush ever did."

I am a Christian, as are most of my loved ones. I most definitely do NOT hate Christians. You have absolutely nothing to back up that libelous claim and should refrain from spewing such again. Clear?

Moreover, everyone, including the oil companies and Wall Street, wants government to provide it with their desires. A democracy of government by, of, and for the people is an ongoing discussion of which of those desires the government can/should provide. The rest of the sentiment in your statement there is wrong, though. I don't want big government. I want effective, compassionate, accountable government.

Finally, I have criticized Obama for such actions. Maybe you were not reading those days. Here I'll make it easy for you:

"Hell No, Obama! Not Even You!"

So, again, while I appreciate that you read here (albeit apparently sporadically), that in no way means you know me well enough to project the sort of hate and mindlessness onto me that you're doing here. It's clear you have your agenda (and talking points), and while I'm always open to believe I'm wrong about things and to hear opposing opinions, I do prefer people to research their accusations before lobbing them so publicly.

More to the point of this post, the abuse of "terrorism" legislation to cower or harass citizens is something we must change via speaking out about it, voting against those who are willing to do it, and unifying behind its alternatives (i.e., oversights we can trust and strict compliance with the Constitution). Surely you can put aside your differences with me on other points to agree to those, no? Or is the entire point of your post simply to disagree?

8/20/2013 10:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Gam said...



“the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders, Goering said. “That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and then denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Goering interviewed with the psychologist Gustave Gilbert

8/21/2013 10:24:00 AM  

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