Can You See Me, Hear Me and Stalk Me Now?

UPDATE: Congress votes to continue domestic spying program, 217-205

84-year-old Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said the vote’s slim margin ensures that vigorous debate on the NSA’s programs will continue.

“This discussion is going to be examined continually … as long as we have this many members in the House of Representatives that are saying it’s OK to collect all records you want just as long as you make sure you don’t let it go anywhere else,'” said Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “That is the beginning of the wrong direction in a democratic society.”

Two years ago, in a strong bipartisan statement, the Senate voted 72-23 to renew the USA Patriot Act, and the House backed the extension 250-153.

Since the disclosures this year, however, lawmakers have said they were shocked by the scope of the two programs – one to collect records of hundreds of millions of calls and the other allowing the NSA to sweep up Internet usage data from around the world that goes through nine major U.S.-based providers.

bob-gardner points out here that 7 out of 8 MA House Representatives voted for the Amash Amendment (would have canceled the statutory authority for the NSA program, ending the agency’s ability to collect phone records and metadata under the USA Patriot Act unless it identified an individual under investigation), Joe Kennedy votes for continuation.

With Boston’s own Whitey Bulger taking center stage and weeks upon weeks of tales of a cruel culture of rabid violence and mayhem entwined in corruption and gore, I am struck by how hard it is to tell the good guys from the bad guys these days. The Bulger trial is like a warped ‘back to the future’ rendition of the Godfather on boiled potatoes.  It plays like a bad horror movie with a sardonic twist of a “Where’s Waldo?” scene.  Scarily, Justice is the hidden image.  

The good guys were working with or for the bad guys and the bad guys were working for the good guys. The truth tellers are liars.  

Kind of sums it up, but what has changed?

It seems that just like the way gambling and other once criminal activities have been legalized hence shedding the yoke of overt corrupt and criminal behavior; there has been a slippery slope of privacy invasion by our government.  The angle of decline has increased dramatically in the past decade – otherwise known as the post 9/11 era. The Patriot Act, NSA, police surveillance, wiretapping, cellphone tracking, digital voyeurism running unchecked by prudent oversight and we don’t know why or by whom we are being watched. But, we are paying for it, literally.

The ACLU has been fighting the fight for civil liberties for a long time.  Here is what the ACLU deputy legal director had to say about this, “From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It’s a program in which some untold numbers of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents,” said Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director. “It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies.”

When testifying recently at the June 9, 2013, Judiciary Committee hearings, AG Martha Coakley assured us that her increased surveillance bill is merely an update of antiquated laws bringing the digital age into statute.   No worries, makes sense, right? Digital Fourth has a different take on, “An Act Updating the Wire Inception Law.” 

When we parse the bill – which magically showed up with over 200 other bills before the Judiciary Committee three weeks before the end of the session and timed for the beginning of the kick-off season (read free media) for the 2014 gubernatorial race and the open MA-5 Congressional seat – the hearing coincidentally starred both the AG (potential governor candidate) and Katherine Clark (MA-5 candidate) co-chair of the committee, we find that it lessens citizen protections assured in the 4^thAmendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

“Senate Co-Chair Katherine Clark, who as a sponsor of the wiretapping bill, had trouble seeing any liberties that the bill would threaten. Her approach was essentially the formalist one that if the procedural constraints remained largely intact, it did not matter how many offenses were wiretappable; her perspective was that law enforcement would use its discretion wisely to wiretap only for serious crimes.”

 These conversations all relate to the very same principles modeled after the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ constitutional language Article XIV that is more explicit in the protection of privacy than the 4^th Amendment of the Constitution.  These grave issues have been recently discussed here and it is my hope that we will expand the conversation.

That same week, I listened to Braude interview Senator Karen Spilka who is also a candidate for the open congressional seat. Braude asked her some questions about her Electronic Privacy legislation filed to update and firm-up the protections granted to citizens in the area of privacy, search and surveillance.   Her position is, “We should have probable cause,” to get digital or other private information and, “I think we need to learn more about privacy and surveillance.”

An interesting if not ironic parallel between Coakley’s position on the Boston Strangler DNA findings and Spilka’s position on privacy protection is that both asked the hypothetical question as to what might have happened if the technology we employ today were available at the time of those tragic crime waves?

“Just think if John Connolly had access to all that information (people’s private information) and transferred it and shared it with Whitey Bulger and the devastation – of what could have happened?” said Senator Spilka.

Well, just think about it now and when you vote.

The questions for us, the people are, “Who will fight for our privacy rights and open government? Will you vote for those who will and push-back against those who don’t?”