As card-carrying, rank-and-file cadre in what the pundits call Obama's "base," I wish to confirm their observation that we are displeased with his national security speech. Sure, the changes he proposed were in the right direction, but the underlying mentality he displayed was disappointing, and even frightening.
I want to point out two little clues:
- the assertion that the NSA did not "intentionally violate the law"
- the reference to "enhanced interrogation"
The latter euphemism reveals a disturbing mentality: torture cannot be called torture, because torture is illegal. If we called it torture, we would have to prosecute someone, and so we call it something else. Thus, we suffer Orwellian doublespeak: " When our enemies do it, it's torture, when we do, it is ‘enhanced interrogation’.” Likewise, the presi-dential exoneration of the NSA disposes of any legal or Constitutional necessity to deal with the abuses of the national security bureaucracy (hereafter: the Secret Police).
As usual, President Obama’s articulation of basic Constitutional principles is eloquent: we do not rely on the good intentions of those in authority, but on the law that constrains them, he says. The implication is that we may adjust the regulations under which they operate without impugning their intentions. So, he can simultaneously propose some welcome changes and praise the Secret Police as patriots.
The scary problem is that it is not at all clear that there was never any intentional violation of the law, as Obama asserted. The Snowden revelations depict the FISA court in conflict with the NSA, repeatedly and forcefully — if not always effectively — insisting that the agency change its ways. Was this unintentional violation, or policy? Obama asks us to trust him on this. I don't. After
all, he is responsible for the policy, so it is not surprising that he should defend
it. A U.S. District Court Judge, Richard Leon, recently found it unconstitutional.
There is also a rhetorical sleight-of-hand in dismissing Snowden's motivation as a policy disagreement. The President argued that we cannot tolerate leaks by those who harbor such disagreements. But Snowden says he was trying to alert us to violations of the law and threats to our fundamental Constitutional liberties, and I think he has a good case. This was not a mere policy disagreement, unless it be argued that "unintentional violations of the Constitution" was the policy of the Secret Police! What if it was, as Snowden claims? What is a genuine patriot to do in that circumstance?
Let us remember Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers. If the flat-footed Nixon boobs hadn't burglarized his psychiatrist’s office, he might well have gone to jail. And then there is the example of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the F.B.I. who, like Snowden, chose to remain out of the Secret Police’s reach and without whose crime we would not have known of COINTELPRO and there would have been no Church Committee. (See below for details) These admitted criminals are the genuine patriots.
Finally, what disturbs me about the Secret Police mentality, on display in the speech right beside the Constitutional eloquence, is an underlying tendency to equate dissent with treason. President Obama can argue persuasively against that equation, but Snowden is charged with espionage, and not just the release of classified material. In other words, if the classified material is sufficiently embarrassing, or if it reveals fundamental Secret Police misconduct, it is treason.
But don't espionage and treason involve betraying the country to an enemy? Aren't the motives for these crimes ideological or venal (money)? Snowden didn't sell the information to anyone, and his only motive seems to be his reading of the Constitution and his knowledge of its systemic violation. He says he wanted all the rest of us citizens to know what was going on. Snowden betrayed the Secret Police to the American people. who are the enemies, who the traitors here? Treason? Espionage? Or is Snowden the real patriot? No wonder President Obama doesn't want to talk about his motives.
Ellsberg and the Citizens Commission to Investigate the F.B.I. certainly committed crimes, as did Snowden in releasing classified material. The question is whether their crimes were justified. Ellberg, at least (I don't know about Snowden) had sworn an oath to "defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic." I consider that sufficient justification for breaking laws that shield such enemies from the view of the American public.
In this connection, the Secret Police mentality revealed itself a few months ago in a comment by one of its chief's, Gen. Keith Brian Alexander, head of the NSA. When asked whether the Snowden revelations would damage national security, he replied that they already had, because they might very well result in congressional prohibitions of what they were doing! In other words, the American people and their elected representatives probably don't know what's good for us, we had better be kept in the dark, and we should just trust the Secret Police to protect us without hindrance.
This is scary.
