Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Today, in the Winona Daily News, Nathan Hansen of the town of Rushford identifies a startling gap between rhetoric and reality on the part of Minnesota’s two United States senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken.

Both of these Democrats claim to be devoted to the defense of Americans’ constitutional rights, but talk is cheap. In practice, both of them voted last month to renew the worst aspects of the plainly unconstitutional Patriot Act – without any attempt at reform. Hansen notes:

“Franken in committee and in public denounces the Patriot Act provisions, including the one roving wiretaps that was extended by his vote. But his voting record does not agree with this. The vote marks the second time that he violated his principles, and his promises to his constituents in Minnesota, and the American people as a whole.

Klobuchar, too, has publicly opposed Patriot Act provisions, but abandoned them in order to keep from rocking the boat. It is sad that this illiberal bill passed by 86-12 margin, but the truly sad part of the story is that Minnesota’s out-of-the-box senators have not really been doing anything out of the box.”

We don’t have to just sit and take it when public officials like senators Klobuchar and Franken fail to live up to their responsibilities. We can, as Hansen would put it, get out of the box.

This coming Saturday, there will be an opportunity for Americans who oppose the renewal of the extraordinary surveillance powers of the Patriot Act to get out of the box and be heard by Congress. There will be a protest demanding repeal of the Patriot Act on Saturday, March 12 at Noon outside the west side of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Bring a sign of protest to show that America will not be silent while its constitutional right are sacrificed!

One of the most depressing features of our times is that the very technology that was supposed to liberate us through the democratization of media is being used against us. Americans have pulled back from publishing themselves on the Internet, and have fallen again into passive habits of using the online resources others create for them, watching, reading, chatting, and most of all buying.

We’re told that privacy is no longer a reasonable expectation, that we should be grateful that the government is continually conducting surveillance on our personal communications, and intruding into groups of activist dissidents using Patriot Act powers. It’s all for our own safety, we’re told.

The Homeland Security Regime is a paternalistic Big Brother, and we’re told not to worry our heads none – Big Brother is watching!

Last year, we warned about the electoral implications of the nomination of Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate. Coakley supported the Patriot Act, alienating the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Mike Capuano, who was one of the few to vote against the Patriot Act back in 2001, would have been a much better choice, and could have rallied Democratic voters to beat Scott Brown.

All that’s history now. What’s not history is the Patriot Act.

Just last week, the House of Representatives voted to pass an extension of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all, sneaking the vote in as an approval of an unspecified amendment to a Medicare bill.

Two-thirds of the House Democrats voted with the Republicans to approve the reform-free extension of Patriot Act spying powers that the government uses against Americans. Mike Capuano was not one of them. Capuano voted against the perpetuation of George W. Bush’s spying programs.

“You may recall that in 2001, I voted against the Patriot Act because I strongly believed that it did not do enough to protect our cherished civil liberties. I continue to have serious concerns about some of its provisions,” Capuano wrote, explaining his vote. “I want to be clear that it is important to give law enforcement the tools they need to pursue criminals. However, there is a way to do that and still recognize the importance of civil liberties – and such a solution is not currently being pursued by the House and Senate.”

Thank you, Representative Capuano, for taking a stand against the politics of fear.

Compare Americans’ reactions to two different bits of news that came out today:

1. Tiger Woods might be cheating on his wife.

2. According to audio recordings of an insider meeting between government spy agencies and the corporations that help them do the spying, gathered by Indiana University grad student Christopher Soghoian, the Bush Administration and Obama Administration demanded private GPS data from consumer mobile devices operated by Sprint-Nextel 8 million times over the last year alone.

So, guess which story is among the most popular among blog readers, according to Google Blogsearch.

You know the answer, don’t you?

Hint: Constitutional rights are soooo last century.

Northeastern University has revealed that a team of its researchers used people’s cell phones to track their movements without their knowledge and without their permission. 100,000 people were spied upon by the Northeastern University team. That’s illegal for academic researchers to do in the United States, so Northeastern University chose to spy on people outside of the USA, in some foreign country that they refuse to name.

The Associated Press is reporting the story, but only part of the story. “That type of nonconsensual tracking would be illegal in the United States, according to Rob Kenny, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission,” the AP writes.

What the AP quotes Rob Kenny as saying is not exactly true. Academics, and other private citizens like you and I cannot legally use cell phone networks to spy on people’s private movements and communications, but the government can.

Thanks to the Patriot Act and the Protect America Act, the American federal government has the power to do the same thing here in the United States that the researchers from Northeastern University did outside of the USA.

The White House can take the information your cell phone beams back to its network, and use that to see where you go and what you do, not just who you talk to with your cell phone. They don’t need a search warrant to do it. They don’t need your permission. They don’t even need to tell you they’re spying on you. No judge approves the spying. No one can stop it.

This kind of spying is a tool of political power.

With this power, the President can track political activists.

The President can eavesdrop on congressional aides.

George W. Bush has the power to spy on Barack Obama’s campaign.

The tricky part is that you can never be sure that you’re being spied on when you’re carrying your cell phone… and you can never be sure that you aren’t being spied on either.

Never being sure if someone from the government is watching where you go, or listening to what you say, you can never be sure that you’re alone.

That kind of environment stifles free speech, free association, and even free thinking.