Christopher Hitchens on mass, warrantless surveillance

In 2006 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Detroit against the NSA. They accused the NSA of violating the US constitution by eavesdropping on people without court oversight. The case represented the first legal challenge to the surveillance programme. It sought an immediate end to wiretaps, saying they violate constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. 

The ACLU suit included Christopher Hitchens. He said in a full written statement and published on the ACLU website:

"People will say it’s wartime and we have a deadly enemy, and I agree with that. I was in favour of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan very strongly, but it is even more important in such a time that we don’t give away power to the unaccountable agencies that helped get us into this in the first place. It is extremely important we know what the rules are and there has to be a line drawn. You mustn’t turn emergency or panic measures into custom or practice."

He also said here, and echoed the bold words above:

"[It is] imperative that we do not take panic or emergency measures in the short term, and then permit them to become institutionalised."

He spoke briefly of the lawsuit in a speech here: 

"I am currently a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the National Security Agency, for doing what it knows how to do, which is bug American citizens instead of doing what it appears not to know how to do which is how to predict terrorist attacks in the United States."

My previous posts on Hitchens on Northern Ireland here, on segregated schools here and on the "parasitic class" here. On Albert Camus and "the rats" here. On Northern Ireland's "barbaric, sectarian leaders" here. His comment that anti-semites are "mentally and morally unwell" here. On Vaclav Havel here. On the US First Amendment here, on the US as an empire and class-based society here, and on how to succeed here. On women and poverty here. On the US Declaration of Independence here. Christopher Hitchens explained that he left the UK in part because of the libel laws, see here. Christopher Hitchens spoke here about the authority of bloggers and online writers (7m30s) (original video in full here). Hitchens on "being bored" as the worst sin here. On why Hitchens is such a compelling writer here. On cliché here. On socialism here. On Iran's "Baby Boomerang", here. On the need to defend the principles of the Enlightenment here. On thought crimes here. On the "encouraging signs of polarisation" here. On feeling "envious of someone who is young and active and starting out" here. Christopher Hitchens on the anti-Columbus movement. On opinion polls here. On the term "political spectrum"here. On Obama's Nobel Peace Prize here. Hitchens on how writing is hard, here. Hitchens on how a writer can never really stop, here. Hitchens explains why he is no longer a socialist, here. On the "some Christians fell into error" excuse here.

Barack Obama - "The drone president"

 

Jeremy Scahill called Obama is "the drone president". He said on Democracy Now:

"On this issue of the drones and the permanent war footing, I mean, Obama has been the drone president. And his line with liberals is sort of "Trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’m monitoring this. I’m doing everything I can to make sure that civilians aren’t killed." But time and time again, we see incidents where large numbers of civilians are being killed, and there seems to be no public accounting for how this happened. They say that they investigate when civilians are killed, and yet we are now two years, almost, removed from the killing of this 16-year-old kid, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who appears to have been killed because of who his father was, was killed in a drone strike while

Glenn Greenwald home. Sarah Harrison exiled.



 

Wow @ggreenwald home. @wikileaks Sarah Harrison exiled, Miranda detained by terror law & @guardian forced data destruction. Says a lot re UK
— Richard Tynan (@richietynan) April 11, 2014

This is exactly the contrast that struck me on hearing that Greenwald had returned to the United States without incident, event or arrest.

Glenn Greenwald landed in New York and passed through customs unhindered.

Sarah Harrison cannot return to the UK. This is on the very real fear and very material likelihood of arrest and prosecution as a terrorist under the Terrorism Act 2000. Glenn Greenwald said here (16m) of the risk of arrest and prosecution:

Frank Church - Abuse of state power

The Snowden-NSA-leaks revealed a world of vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan mass surveillance. A system of surveillance that has gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism. Following the Nixon-surveillance scandal, Senator Frank Church led an enqiry into the misuse of state power. This resulted in the Church Committee.

In 1975 Frank Church said:

"[The National Security Agency’s] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide."

Thomas Paine said in 'Dissertation on First Principles of Government' (July 1795):

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

Glenn Greenwald - Privacy is necessary for creativity

In an article in Salon, "Surveillance breeds conformity" Natasha Lennard spoke with Glenn Greenwald. He explained why privacy the prerequisite to being a fully formed human being and the prerequisite to creativity. He explained this with two points.

Firstly, Glenn Greenwald said that the first value of privacy is the personal:

"I think the primary value of privacy is personal as opposed to legalistic or constitutional or political, by which I mean it’s essential to what it means to be human that we have a private life. We interact with other human beings as social animals, and live part of our lives in the public eye — that’s crucial — that’s why if you put someone in solitary confinement for 23 and a half hours a day like we do in U.S. prisons, it’s a form of torture. And it makes people go insane, because we need, as part of our human functioning, to be seen by other human beings and to be perceived by them and understood through the eyes of other people. 

Secondly, it's about being free to explore and express oneself creatively:

Glenn Greenwald - The problem with endorsing abuse of state power

Gore Vidal (at 17 minutes) said:

"Every president wants to be a dictator. It is the nature of power. You don’t accept limited powers unless you’re a very limited man."

Gore Vidal said in 1999:

"I don’t know where the Internet is going to go but I do know that the government is going to try and take it over. You can count on that." 

Glenn Greenwald (at 26 minutes) said there are lots of reasons why people should be concerned about civil liberties, even if theirs aren’t being infringed or abridged. He gave two reasons.

Firstly:

"The first of which, history leaves no doubt that, although civil liberties infringements begin in a very confined way - directed at the most marginalized minorities about whom people don’t care or to whom they direct their hostility – it is inevitable, absolutely inevitable that those civil liberties abridgments, once they are entrenched, will spread ; and they’ll spread far beyond their original intended targets."

He continued:

Glenn Greenwald on the abuse of state power through terror laws

Glenn Greenwald said here of the lessons learnt from the Church Committee:

"The lesson of the Church Committee from the 1970s is that when you allow people in government to spy on Americans in the dark with no accountability and without warrant, they abuse that power and that’s what’s happened; it’s rampant abuse and it needs sunlight."

Glenn Greenwald has previously also cited Cicero who said: "Laws are silent in times of war." Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) said of Glenn Greenwald and the abuse of terrror laws:

"In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state. 

You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?"

Martin Firrell - "Security is no replacement for liberty"

Martin Firrell (@MartinFirrell) is a campaigner and cultural activist. In the age of Wikileaks and mass NSA and GCHQ surveillence, his famous quote is of massive contemporary relevance. Though he isn't the only one to be concerned. The maximalist civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald is leading a front against the overbearing US security and surveillance state. He and a team of civil liberties activist have launched a news site The Intercept (@the_intercept). Christopher Hitchens also fought back against the tentacles of the state and said in the August 2003 issue of Reason.

"The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both."

Gore Vidal said in 199 during during an address, ‘Writer’s Perspective: Smithsonian Institute’:

"I don’t know where the Internet is going to go but I do know that the government is going to try and take it over. You can count on that."