Commenter Ray Yang articulates something Ive been thinking about in his comment below:
You know, the debate, about what types of new powers we allow the government to fight terrorism, is definitely a debate we should be having. However, must we have a sacrificial goat prior to having the conversation?
As far as I can tell, the TIA program itself is guilty of nothing more than poor PR (that seal, putting John Poindexter at the helm, and not being sufficiently obsequious to the insufferable Will Safire). According to the publicly released information, they will experiment with data the government already has, and ‘simulate’ data the government doesn’t have, to test the effectiveness of various data-pooling, data-mining, and analysis techniques. The program collects no data of its own.
That seems like a noble goal, especially when you realize that the biggest customer for this program is likely to be America’s foreign intelligence agencies, which collect their data abroad. At that point, the question isn’t whether you want to give the government the ability to be more intrusive into our lives, it’s whether you’re willing to let the government be aggressive abroad in our defense.
Ive tried in the past to have it both ways
to support the informed pack and to criticize what I see as potentially heavy-handed intrusions into civil liberties. Its probably time to try and figure out where I stand in this.
First, Ill try and deflect criticism by pointing out that Im not alone in wanting to have my cake and eat it too. Talk Left celebrates the demise of TIPS:
We especially liked this from the July 17 Boston Globe editorial, Ashcroft vs. Americans:
“Ashcroft’s informant corps is a vile idea not merely because it violates civil liberties in a narrow legal sense or because it will sabotage genuine efforts to prevent terrorism by overloading law enforcement officials with irrelevant reports about Americans who have nothing to do with terrorists. Operation TIPS should be stopped because it is utterly anti-American. It would give Stalin and the KGB a delayed triumph in the Cold War – in the name of the Bush administration’s war against terrorism.”
Good riddance to Operation Tips, and may the Total Information Awareness program meet the same fate.
Thats at 9:39 in the morning. But if you look back to 6:10 the same morning, theres a laudatory post about Gary Hart and his prescient views on terror, with this quote:
What does he say about fighting the terror war?
“Aside from governmental vigilance, Hart stresses the need for an alert citizenry. “The tag line of every speech I’ve given over the last two years on this subject is: ‘You in this audience are now front-line soldiers.’
“This war’s being fought in our streets and cities. Nobody’s going to ride in. The 82d Airborne isn’t coming. The 1st Marine Division isn’t going to be here. It’ll be the Colorado National Guard. The cops on the beat. The fire and emergency management people. We’re all going to have to get into this. Now, why can’t the president say that?”
Now I dont mean to single Jeralyn (author of Talk Left) out
Im in pretty much the same boat, here, as are a host of people up to and including much of the Democratic leadership (actually, Im too generous
the Democratic leadership happily worked with the Clinton administration to cut civil liberties off at the knees).
But we cant have it both ways. If we empower the citizenry
and Im not even talking about arming them at his point, just training them on what to look for and who to call when they see something
well, doing that looks a hell of a lot like operation TIPS to me.
And we cant have hearings on intelligence failures and why didnt we know on one hand and, on the other, criticize efforts to centralize some data and make sure that the arms of the government are working in a coordinated fashion.
So how do we balance these?
I don’t think Gary Hart was encouraging citizens to snoop on each other. I think he was referring to what happens after an attack in the U.S. When the attack happens overseas, or the war is overseas, we send in the miltary, eg. the 82nd airborne. We don’t tend to use the hard-core military like Marines, Special Forces,Air Force or Navy for those purposes domestically.
I could be wrong, but I thought Hart was saying that if (or when, in his opinion) an attack happens at home, it is domestic law enforcement along with paramedics, hospital workers, rescue workers, firemen, construction workers, personnel from relief organizations and other like citizens who we will have to depend upon.
I didn’t interpret his comments as being directed to preventive or intelligence measures to be taken by the average citizen.
I am a supporter of the individual’s right to bear arms, by the way, believing it to be guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
As a citizenry, we MUST be enlisted into fighting a war in which we find ourselves. Now, I don’t think Bush has made the case against Iraq; however, al Qaeda has made its case against our nation. The passengers over Pennsylvania showed that with information, they can make an informed (and successful) choice about intervention.
Our current administration seems to be saying, “Leave this to the professionals.” Yet, this is a fight that can crop up within our communities at any time. We DON’T need “TIPS” because we already have “Neighborhood Watch.” So, give the citizens time to get to know their neighbors.
After all, the conservative right feels we must consume privatized power, phones, gas (why not roads, too?). So, trust us with the defense of our country. Wean us off our addiction to oil so we can stand on our own; but nope, our president ENABLES the country to continue consumption of oil and gas… and remain beholden to our Middle-east suppliers.
Darryl “commuting 5 miles on bicycle in Ventura County” Pearce
Jeralyn, Darryl:
First, I do take Hart’s comments at being directed at everyone, not just sworn public safety personnel. But even if it was just limited to public safety folks, taking his comments seriously implies an integration of traditional public safety functions into antiterrorism, which necessarily means connecting Barney Fife with Jason Bourne somehow.
And the “Neighborhood Watch” model is a good one, but remember that it involves direct contact between the police and community, with officers trained in community training and communication.
We have to have some interfaces between citizens, local public safety personnel, and national antiterrorism personnel.
What should those interfaces look like? That’s the $64,000 question.
A.L.
Where is the cite for the assertion that TIA won’t collect any information that isn’t currently available to the government.
For instance, the quote “novel methods for populating the database from existing sources, create innovative new sources” from http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm seems to indicate that “new sources” will be developed.
Have to disagree with Jeralyn. If the 82nd and Special Forces aren’t going to be around all the time, nor can we expect the police and so on to be there all the time, either.
As much as the various “officials” may not like this, there’s only one way we’re ever going to get through all this, and that’s by becoming less dependent on THEM, and more self-sufficient.
As for the TIA, there’s little to discuss. It’s un-Constitutional — in direct contravention of the 4A. End of story.
A.L. says we will need “direct contact between the police and community, with officers trained in community training and communication.” He wonders what its going to look like, which I interpret to mean how do get there.
While I’m not a fan of Neighborhood Watch programs, if that’s where the country wants to go, it can probably draft Bill Bratton, new chief of the LAPD–he’s a master of community policing and has already begun to install it in LA. If he can bring the concept to Boston, New York and LA, he can bring it to the country. To see how he’d do it, follow his progress in the LA Times and just think bigger. Or buy his book Turnaround (I think its called) on Amazon, he lays it out in detail.
David Brin’s got some interesting things to say about privacy vs. security here:
http://www.privacyfoundation.org/privacywatch/report.asp?id=79&action=0
And here: http://www.davidbrin.com/libertarianarticle1.html
His main contention being that there is no real conflict between these two desirable things. Don’t know how much I agree but he raises some interesting points.
Anyway, the thing with TIPS … remember the woman in Florida I think who called the cops on those three guys in some diner who were laughing about 9-11? Now I’m a liberal, but I thought some folks on the left were way out of line ridiculing this woman … yes, she turned out to be wrong, but better safe than sorry on these types of things, no?
What this has to do with TIPS is that I don’t really see a problem with this sort of program — it’s basically a phone # you can call, isn’t it? — granted people care enough about their own freedoms and privacy to watchdog it. That’s the big problem I have with “civil libertarians” constantly warning about Big Brother — it assumes the general population is just going to roll over and let their lives be taken over by gov’t agencies. We don’t have to let that happen, as I think Brin to some extent shows.
But another problem is that too much is illegal in our society, and I’m particularly thinking about drugs. A big part of the negative sentiment about government intrusiveness has to do with the fact that the cops could bust down my door, find me smoking a joint or doing a line of coke, and suddenly I’m getting arrested! That’s fucking bullshit, man! Put some sense back in the country’s drug policy and suddenly you’d see people much more cooperative with intrustions on their privacy in the effort to stop terrorism.
Of course, part of privacy advocates’ concerns also has to do with things that aren’t necessarily illegal, but which nobody wants getting out to the public at large. Who wants that weird porn on their hard drive getting laughed at by some pinhead bureaucrat? This situation is actually tougher to get around than the drug laws, which can just be changed. With privacy concerns about our legal, but embarrassing/damaging activities, we’re going to need a sea change in how we view such things. In this sense, Larry Flynt is a huge hero — making porn and deviance open secrets. We should all follow his example … and now I’m rambling …
http://raymo.blogspot.com/2002_11_01_raymo_archive.html
FWIW, Gary Hart regards Total Information Awareness as both Orwellian and a monumental waste of resources.
And I sure don’t know the basis of speculation that the biggest customer of a TIA system would “America’s foreign intelligence agencies, which collect their data abroad.” And the following doesn’t track at all: “At that point, the question isn’t whether you want to give the government the ability to be more intrusive into our lives, it’s whether you’re willing to let the government be aggressive abroad in our defense.” Please. TIA is about seeing how close you can get to collecting every conceivable recordable transaction everywhere, and everywhere includes the domestic scene. And since a huge concern is sleeper cells in the U.S., well come on–we’re talking about domestic surveillance.
I know the stakes are very high here, but nearly perfect security really is more possible, in a police state.