The all-seeing government

Elements of the US government assume everyone is a terrorist, and has authority to mine every data base associated with, or accessed by, the government as a whole to maintain surveillance on everyone's behavior, looking for (as yet unannounced) "suspicious patterns" and making predictions of future activity.

united states currency eye- IMG_7364_web (Photo credit: kevindean)

After the somewhat-farcical (and some claim, contrived) case of the "underwear bomber"the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC--leave it to the government to misspell an acronym) requested to maintain a dragnet that made even the Department of Homeland Security uneasy.  After long insider arguments, the Wall Street Journal Reports, that access was granted in March of this year.

According to the DHS privacy officer this a "sea change" in which the first question to be asked by the feds of any citizen is now "are they a terrorist?"  The legislative counsel of the ACLU describes it like this:

What if a government spy agency had power to copy and data mine information about ordinary Americans from any government database? This could include records from law enforcement investigations, health information, employment history, travel and student records. Literally anything the government collects would be fair game, and the original agency in charge of protecting the privacy of those records would have little say over whether this happened, or what the spy agency did with the information afterward. What if that spy agency could add commercial information, anything it – or any other federal agency – could buy from the huge data aggregators that are monitoring our every move? 

What if it wasn’t just collection but also sharing? Anything that was reasonably believed to be necessary to “protect the safety or security of persons, property or organizations” or “protect against or prevent a crime or threat to national security” could be shared. Imagine the dissemination was essentially unlimited, not just to federal, state, local or foreign governments but also to individuals or entities that are not part of the government 

It has already happened.

And almost no one seems to care. Even working on the assumption that the motives of everyone involved in this are pure, it's setting up a weapon in the name of national security aimed not at "the terrorists," but at everyone.  In fact, if anyone would be safe from this it would be a skilled terrorist. It shines the light on the trivial at the expense of what might actually be useful, if the system were focused and operated in keeping with constitutional safeguards.  It promises predictability.  It delivers chaos.  And in the meantime, it places whatever data exists--whether true or not--combined and analyzed by whatever algorithm is applied--however imperfect or biased--into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats--no matter how stupid or evil--to do with as they will.

Who needs terrorists?  Who nees to look outside for threats?  They don't: they have us.  And we don't: we have them.


US Counterterrorism Agency Collects Data On Every US Citizen - Business Insider

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The FBI: Bringing more and bigger terrorism to you

The New York Times estimates that of the "22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations."  This may be conservative--but we can use it as a minimum standard for analysis.  And what do these stings look like?

THE informer, Shahed Hussain, had been charged with fraud, but avoided prison and deportation by working undercover in another investigation. He was being paid by the F.B.I. to pose as a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group that Mr. Cromitie apparently had never heard of before they met by chance in the parking lot of a mosque. 

“Brother, did you ever try to do anything for the cause of Islam?” Mr. Hussain asked at one point.“O.K., brother,” Mr. Cromitie replied warily, “where you going with this, brother?” 

Two days later, the informer told him, “Allah has more work for you to do,” and added, “Revelation is going to come in your dreams that you have to do this thing, O.K.?” About 15 minutes later, Mr. Hussain proposed the idea of using missiles, saying he could get them in a container from China. Mr. Cromitie laughed. 

Reading hundreds of pages of transcripts of the recorded conversations is like looking at the inkblots of a Rorschach test. Patterns of willingness and hesitation overlap and merge. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mr. Cromitie said, and then explained that he meant women and children. “I don’t care if it’s a whole synagogue of men.” It took 11 months of meandering discussion and a promise of $250,000 to lead him, with three co-conspirators he recruited, to plant fake bombs at two Riverdale synagogues. 

“Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope,” said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a “fantasy terror operation” but called his attempt “beyond despicable” and rejected his claim of entrapment.

There are real terrorists, but not enough to justify the expense and systematic loss of liberty associated with the "war on terror."*  How many "terrorists" are incompetent losers looking for a cause to latch on to, pushed by government agents to commit acts which will, when "uncovered," build budgets and careers?  

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• Documents provide rare insight into FBI's terrorism stings (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)
• The FBI: Making Sure We Don't Need to Import Terror From Overseas (reason.com)
• NYTimes Realizes That The FBI Keeps Celebrating Breaking Up Its Own Terrorist Plots (blacklistednews.com)
• Muslim Converts Get 25 Years in 2009 Jihad Plot against Synagogues, Shooting Down Military planes With Stinger Missiles (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)

*It's bad enough that a "war on terror" is conceptually absurd.  It's like declaring a "war on airplanes" in response to Pearl Harbor.  Then again, we've already declared "war" on crime, drugs, poverty, obesity, war...

It seems the only thing we don't dare call a war are our real wars.  We haven't done that, officially, since World War II.

So why bother?

Brian Michael Jenkins has been thinking and writing about terrorism since the 1970s, back before anyone else gave the phenomenon the attention it deserves.  He has a better sense of perspective on the "war on terror" and the homeland security state than anyone I know.  So when he takes on Senator Carl Levin on the anti-liberty provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, he not only deserves to be taken seriously, he should be applauded for the calm and reasoned way he mops the floor with the Senator and his claims.  Foreign Affairs (subscription required) has been printing their ongoing debate.  If you can get to it (students, check the library), it's worth a look, or you can get a sense of where it has gone through the selections available to the public.  My favorite quote, from Jenkins:

Senator Carl Levin argued in these pages that the NDAA changes nothing. If that were true, there would have been no reason to pass the bill.

The Senator, on the other hand, comes off looking like something of a cross between a fool and a cynic.  I don't suppose there's any surprise there.

A Final Word on the NDAA | Foreign Affairs

Clearing my desk

Eric Holder at the signing of the NDAA by Getty Images via @daylife

It's been too long since I posted here, so I'll start by clearing up a few "must reads":

(1) The NDAA Makes it Harder to Fight Terrorism | Foreign Affairs: Brian Michael Jenkins is one the world's greatest experts on international terrorism. He started the RAND Corporation research program on terrorism in 1972. (Where were you in 1972?) When he points out that the liberty-stripping provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act will do nothing to facilitate the prosecution of the war on terrorism, and will in fact harm it, all I can add is "amen". But then he adds something I hadn't thought of. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force Resolution is the post-9/11 act authorizes the use of force to kill or capture those responsible for 9/11 and to prevent future international terrorist attacks. The NDAA allows the detention of terrorist suspects "until the end of hostilities," as authorized by the AUMF. Assuming there is no official statement that the war is "forever" there will come a time when

the United States will consider its military mission against terrorism to be over. Declaring an end to the military campaign, however, would remove the country's legal basis to hold enemy combatants. Pressure would increase to release detainees. While lawyers and legislators try to work out the ambiguous post-hostilities status of detainees, those convicted of crimes in civilian courts will remain locked away in jail, serving out fair sentences.

I might add that as time passes the question of whether the military mission is "over" will itself become a political question. Already combat pay is being cut for soldiers in Afghanistan. There will be a political bonus for the politician who can claim the "victory" of transforming terrorism from a war back to a normal security problem. (Of course, there will also be those whose jobs and identity are so wrapped up in the current definition of the situation that they'll resist that declaration.) I shudder to think of the question of when a military action "ends" being fought through the federal courts. And even before the issue is settled, there will be lawyers using the ambiguity to call for the release of real mass murderers.

Meanwhile, the people locked up who have nothing to do with terrorism--the majority, I expect, if the history of the (s0-called) PATRIOT Act is any indication--will probably be the last to get out.

Legal rules exist for a reason. Tampering with them on the spur of the moment--by legislators or by courts--rarely serves the interests of the people. It might help some prosecutors in the short run. It might help some politicians win reelection. But that's their problem. Mine is to keep them from screwing with the rights of the rest of us.

(2) The Pentagon Discloses Military Intelligence Budget Request | Secrecy News: It's 19.2 billion dollars, and that's a drop from the high. It looks like winding down the wars is the primary reason for the decline. And for once, the DoDers (DoDoes?) weren't forced to release the secret. It was just there, in the request, because the relevant Defense Department authorities changed their minds on the need for classification.

There actually is some intelligent life in D.C.

I hope it doesn't harm their careers.

(3) A New Perspective on Cost of War from the folks at Demon*cracy.

The original graphic is huge. You really need to see the original to get the full impact.

Now, if we could just estimate the cost of not going to war we could do a cost-benefit analysis. My suspicion is it wasn't worth it--not this long, not this much, and not at all for Iraq. Whether or not you think the price was worth it, it's clear the price--the immediate price, not counting what it has done to our society and law and politics and economy in the long run--has been huge.

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