Edward the Snowden

Edward the Snowden, was a coder in-the-know,
With his glasses square, and a stubbled face,
and a whistle that he'd blow.

Edward the Snowden, did work for the NSA.
Did for a while, 'til he stole some files,
and he had to run away.

There must have been some secrets in those files that he found,
For when they placed it on the web,
people's jaws dropped to the ground.

Edward the Snowden, was as smug as he could be,
And we heard him say, that the NSA,
liked to spy on you and me.

Edward the Snowden, had to hurry on his way,
So he waved goodbye, said "I gotta fly,
to stay out of Guantanamo Bay."

   My wife and I tend to agree with each other for the most part when it comes to politics, but we have different opinions regarding the Edward Snowden case.  Just be be clear, neither of us believes that he is a traitor or that he has compromised the security of the United States in any way ( After all, any terrorists smart enough to carry out successful plots would be careful enough to work under the assumption that United States could be listening in on any of their phone calls.  These guys are not discussing terrorists plots on their iPhones.  OK, well maybe that's not 100% true   ( After all, the head of the CIA thought he could keep an extra-marital affair secret via gmail. ).  There will always be small-time guys with small-time plots that don't even care that they might be caught ( being caught and killed would make them a martyr in their own eyes ), but the USA doesn't have the resources to track all the small-time guys, and frankly it would be a poor allocation of resources to track all the potential small-time terrorists.  For the amount of money that is spent on counter-terrorism you could save a lot more lives by allocating more police resources to inner-city neighborhoods plagued by gang violence.  White suburban "security moms" overly concerned about the dangers of terrorism should try raising a family in inner-city Baltimore for a week ( Oh and BTW, when I say more "police resources" would help save more lives, I mean police resources allocated to protecting people, rather than police resources being used to arrest people for smoking weed.  The amount of police and prison resources allocated towards drug possession crimes is ridiculous - but that's an issue for another blog post.  ).  The difference between my opinion and my wife's opinion is that I actually believe that Edward Snowden's actions have increased the security of the United States.

My wife doesn't have any problem with the NSA monitoring the phone calls of Americans.  She, like many Americans, says that she has "nothing to hide".  She's glad that the United States government can use this kind of surveillance to catch terrorists and criminals.  I, on the other hand, feel that such surveillance is a threat to our democracy, and thus a threat to our long-term freedom and security.

Let me make one thing clear, as far as I am concerned, this isn't about privacy.  I could give a rats' ass about privacy.  If the government secretly installed a camera in our bedroom to watch my wife and I have "private time", my attitude would be "Fine, if that's what gets you off, enjoy the show!".  I don't really care if the government finds out my secret information ( Have fun being bored-to-death Mr. Governement Agent! ), but I do care if the government can get compromising information about people who are frankly more important than me.

For example, consider a journalist who might be in midst of uncovering damning evidence of government corruption, evidence that might force a President to resign, or change the outcome of an election.  Let's say this journalist happens to a guy who is cheating on his wife.  Let's say he's made hundreds of phone calls to his mistress.  If the US government has access to the history of phones calls this journalist made ( which Snowden's revelations shows that they would ), they could use this information to blackmail the journalist into burying his story about the government corruption.  In an example like this one ( or case where a political opponent was involved in marital infidelity ) phone-call information collected by the NSA could be used to keep a corrupt administration in power.  In my opinion, a corrupt federal government is a bigger threat to our freedom and security than any terrorist.

If you want a real-world example, consider that case of Martin Luther King Jr. and the FBI.  It's a widely-held belief these days that MLK cheated on his wife ( If don't believe this, take a look the "Allegations of adultery" section of this link.  I think it is pretty damning that one of his closest allies  ( Ralph Abernathy ) wrote that MLK had a "weakness for women" and "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage.  It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation". ).  The FBI knew this, tapped MLK's phones in order to get evidence of this, and tried to used this evidence to destroy him.

Just imagine if the FBI had had more tools their disposal to use against MLK.  Just imagine if they could have discredited him while he was alive or driven him out of the fight for Civil Rights.  Just imagine how different the world might be today.  Would we be more "safe"?

Rich