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!

This morning, I wrote about the news that the EFF has had to file suit to get the Obama Adminstration to respond to Freedom of Information Requests about spying on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook has acknowledged, in a vague kind of way, that it assists the government in spying on its users, but when the EFF sought particulars, the Obama Administration refused to meet its legal obligation to respond.

Part of my response to this news was to write the article here on Irregular Times. I believe that simply spreading information can provoke some people into action.

But what about me? What would my response be? I looked at my own part in this story, at my own account on Facebook. I saw that while Facebook brings me nice bits of little news about friends I’m not in touch with on a regular basis, the service also brings me a lot of irrelevant bits of information that has nothing to do with me or my relationships to my friends. I saw a lot of advertisements and pointless, relatively boring games. I remembered how it used to be, that when I wanted to know something about one of my friends, I talked to them in person, and if I didn’t want to know about something, I just didn’t ask.

I looked at what Facebook was doing for me, and asked myself whether it was worth allowing government spies to have access to information about my social life. The answer: No, Facebook is not worth it.

So, my response to the Obama Administration’s refusal to be honest about its social networking spy operations is this: I’m off Facebook. I have deactivated my account, and I don’t plan on going back.

The sad thing is that a deactivated account is not a deleted account. While deactivating, the following notice came:

“Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends.”

I opted out, of course. Still, I realize that Facebook is keeping all the information I loaded up about my life, and will share that information with government spies if they ever demand it. The deactivation matters, nonetheless: At least I’m not adding new information. My little window in the Facebook panopticon is now shuttered.

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.