Flag Day. A time to reflect on the adoption of the flag we
honor, and what it symbolizes. In the
world of 1776, it is a nation committed to freedom in its purist form. Oceans separated us from the rest of the
world, difficult for an invading army to breach that defense.
The Second Amendment, giving us the right to bear arms,
was passed in 1791, a means of maintaining a civilian militia. ("A well regulated
militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.") At the time the flintlock musket was the
standard weapon. Count on being able to fire it maybe 2-3 times a minute. Arms have
evolved to the point where a deranged individual can hoard a surfeit of
automatic weapons, making that one person a veritable army.
And communications used to be dependent on the mail, then
the telegraph, the telephone, and now electronic everything, marrying all
methods of communication from the printed word to video. The Internet has given rise to threats that
could not even be imagined by the framers of the Constitution and the Fourth
Amendment.
Maybe it is time for a public debate on the issue, but
the data mining being done by the National Security Agency cannot be a
surprise to anyone. Edward Snowden's so
called whistle blowing merely politicizes what most suspected.
If anyone asked us the day after 9/11 whether the
government should make use of private electronic communications with the sole
objective of preventing any such future event, we would have merely said, where
do we sign on? How short everyone's
memory is. It is ironic that a liberal
constitutional law professor -- Barack Obama -- now, as President, is carrying
forth the NSA program which had been condoned by his predecessor.
The brave new electronic world exponentially enhances the
weapons of guerrilla warfare, the preferred tactic of terrorist
adversaries. One does not fight this
with the tactics of warfare when the Constitution was written, soldiers standing
in straight lines right out in the open.
Clandestine electronic communications are fodder for equally clandestine
data mining. So, let the
"debate" begin in Washington, but if it is anything like exchanges
over the budget, it is liable to do more harm than good, unless there can be
some consensus on an oversight mechanism that still preserves the intent of the
program.
In this regard, I can't help but think of Aaron Sorkin's
brilliant movie, A Few Good Men. When Col. Nathan R. Jessup faces Lt. Daniel
Kaffee on the stand, we are all rooting for Kaffee, recognizing the menace that
Jessup represents. But that was 1992. With a little editing (my apologies to Mr.
Sorkin), I can imagine how this might go today...
NSA to Snowden: Son, we live in a world of electronic communications, ones terrorists
routinely use, and we have to be guarded by high tech surveillance. Who's gonna
do it? You, Mr. Snowden? We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly
fathom. You weep for your loss of freedoms and you curse the NSA. You have that
luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know, that some loss of
privacy, while tragic, probably saved lives. And our existence, while grotesque
and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because
deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want us data mining.
You need us on that job. We have neither the time nor the inclination to
explain ourselves to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the
security that we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it!
I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way.
