by hilzoy
A few days ago, William Arkin, who is usually very good, wrote:
"Come on. The government is not just repeating the targeting of political opponents a la J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon. It is not picking out a Seymour Hersh or a Cindy Sheehan to find their links to foreign influences nor seeking to ruin their lives by developing incriminating evidence on them."
(To be fair, he also wrote, in the same column:
"What has happened since the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks is as pernicious and as damaging as any abuse or panic or misstep of the past: We must pledge allegiance to a certain post 9/11 Order, abandon the rule of law, compromise our values, turn against our neighbors, enlist in a clash of civilizations, all in the name of defeating the terrorists.We are being asked to destroy our country in order to save it.")
Apparently, he was wrong. We are, in fact, targeting political opponents, not just potential terrorists*, for surveillance. From today's NYT:
"One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals."
From NBC:
"A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.
“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project. (...)
“I mean, we're based here at the Quaker Meeting House,” says Truth Project member Marie Zwicker, “and several of us are Quakers.”
The Defense Department refused to comment on how it obtained information on the Lake Worth meeting or why it considers a dozen or so anti-war activists a “threat.”"
From today's Washington Post:
"FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity. (...)The ACLU said it received 2,357 pages of files on PETA, Greenpeace, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the ACLU itself. One file referring to the committee included a contact list for students and peace activists who attended a 2002 conference at Stanford University aimed at ending sanctions then in place in Iraq."
From the Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network (h/t AmericaBlog):
"Only eight pages from the four-hundred page document have been released so far. But on those eight pages, Sirius OutQ News discovered that the Defense Department has been keeping tabs NOT just on anti-war protests, but also on seemingly non-threatening protests against the military's ban on gay servicemembers. According to those first eight pages, Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April protests at UC-Santa Cruz, State University of New York at Albany, and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's gay advocacy group "OUTlaw," and was classified as "possibly violent."All of these protests were against the military's policy excluding gay personnel, and against the presence of military recruiters on campus. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says the Pentagon needs to explain why "don't ask, don't tell" protesters are considered a threat."
So our government seems to be keeping tabs on: the Catholic Workers, vegans, Quakers, the ACLU, people opposed to sanctions in 2002, and people who protest 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' I'm sure every one of them presents a threat to this country. Why, I myself am a member of the ACLU and a vegetarian (though I've never had much use for PETA), and I oppose 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to boot. Also, I listen to Bob Dylan a lot. Heaven only knows what fascinating tidbits have been added to my FBI file in recent years.
As conservatives above all should know, there is no earthly reason to think that when the government starts spying on people outside the law, it will behave in a trustworthy manner. The mere fact that it goes outside the law is usually proof enough that it won't. ('Usually' here is philosophers' caution, meant to allow for cases involving completely and totally extraordinary circumstances for which the law does not provide. Think: Osama bin Laden threatens to blow up the world unless some FBI agent steals a paperclip. The proper course of action in that case is, according to me, to steal the paperclip, capture bin Laden, and then turn oneself in for theft.)
There's a reason some of us were all bent out of shape about the administration's claims of absolute power when they first came to light. And there's a reason we did not accept any assurances that no doubt the administration would only use its powers to go after terrorists. That reason is the recognition that it is the law, not the virtue of any particular politician, that protects us against the abuse of government power, and when the government asserts that it is not bound by the law, we are all in danger.
***
* [Update: I do not mean to suggest that targeting people the administration thinks might be potential terrorists for unlawful searches would in any way be OK. I am just saying that if we are targeting, of all people, the ACLU, then we have gone after a quite different set of people, and thus that one of Arkin's assumptions is wrong. I am not making any claim about better or worse.]
Arkin is one of the numerous people who know better, but find the temptation of being one of the Kewl Kidz irresistable.
Posted by: Barry | December 20, 2005 at 03:13 PM
The main problem here, and it's the only one, is thatyou're doing precisely what Jes did in the prior thread: conflating NSA activities with FBI activities. This causes more confusion in people's understanding than it educates them about the different programs, their different histories, and what's different about them, in a considerable variety of ways.
Details of what "surveillance" means here matters greatly, for instance.
"Arkin is one of the numerous people who know better, but find the temptation of being one of the Kewl Kidz irresistable."
Whereas engaging in tu quoque and mindreading might remain resistible. It's better for the soul, I hear.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 03:26 PM
hilzoy: "Also, I listen to Bob Dylan a lot. Heaven only knows what fascinating tidbits have been added to my FBI file in recent years."
Can you check and let us know? Or is your "file" classified?
(Also the listening to Dylan bit doesn't really belong in my response... just wanted to let the blogosphere know how cool you are... in case they've somehow inexpicably missed it!)
PS: Happy holidays all you geniuses. It's been a great treat sharing your thoughts/ideas this past year.
Posted by: xanax | December 20, 2005 at 03:32 PM
Gary: I didn't mean to. (More responding to Arkin, on what "the government" is doing.) In fact, I think that the FBI is watching PETA and the ACLU, while the DOD's Counterintelligence Field Activity is watching the Quakers and the people protesting Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
I do think that lawlessness is (in this case) a property of much of the administration, not of (e.g.) the NSA.
Posted by: hilzoy | December 20, 2005 at 03:50 PM
I have no problem with internal security service agencies keeping tabs on political groups with proper judicial approval. That isn't targetting those groups, it's gathering intelligence, especially if it no no way hinders or prevents those groups or members from expressing legal political action.
Now, if there were no warrants granted...
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 03:54 PM
I have no problem with internal security service agencies keeping tabs on political groups with proper judicial approval.
Many countries we consider "free" do so.
It's not so much the snooping as the circumventing of law that is so disturbing. If there is a real, tangible threat, present your case to the public and rewrite the law.
It seems so simple.
Posted by: spartikus | December 20, 2005 at 03:58 PM
Are right wing groups being snooped on? I resent the implication that us vegetatians are more likely to be terrorist-collaborators than members of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association ( an organization that once hired hitmen, shipped them to a small town and set out to murder a list of over one hundred citizens, including the town's sheriff).
Posted by: lily | December 20, 2005 at 04:32 PM
lily, perhaps they're concerned that vegetarians will, in an extreme act of agroterrorism, unleash a yuckiness virus on the cattle population which infects cows and makes their flesh taste like lima beans.
Posted by: Sara | December 20, 2005 at 04:40 PM
Are right wing groups being snooped on?
I'm sure they are.
It's not "snooping" for government agencies who are tasked with internal security to simply gather information on any politically-based groups in order to determine whether they are either extremist, likely to become so, or are a magnet for extremist personalities.
As a matter of fact, I'd be shocked if they didn't gather any information of any kind about groups like these. The real issue is that it would be easy for these agencies to turn to harrassment or persecution, which is why you need judicial overview to prevent this. Which is why the NSA spying is so troubling, even if the subjects of the surveillance were legitimate targets of investigation.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 05:03 PM
lily, perhaps they're concerned that vegetarians will, in an extreme act of agroterrorism, unleash a yuckiness virus on the cattle population which infects cows and makes their flesh taste like lima beans.
I think that there have been a few cases of extremist behaviour on the part of some members of animal rights groups in the past, including the poisoning of supermarket meat and the threatening of people involved in vivisection or animal testing.
That doesn't mean that all are, simply that if an animal rights group turned to extremist and illegal political action, organizations like the FBI should be aware of the group prior to that, right?
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 05:08 PM
It's nice to see our finite resources focuses squarely on the true threats of Vegan queers.
Those guys are up to no good. You can tell because they don't eat meat, and engage in sodomy. Just like terrorists.
Posted by: Morat | December 20, 2005 at 05:14 PM
Cass Sunstein says the AUMF might indeed trump FISA Rules
Marty Lederman says uh-uh
Umm, One is not in response to the other.
Still waking u. How decadent, or desperate.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | December 20, 2005 at 05:24 PM
"Can you check and let us know?"
I'm sure an FOIA request should be processed within ten years or so. Maybe. Expurgated, of course. But often interesting, nonetheless. Only occasionally actually frightening, other than the general spookiness.
The point to worry about general surveillance, and warrantless surveillance, is the slippery slope. Acts like taping Martin Luthur King's extra-marital-sex life and mailing tapes to reporters, does serious damage to someone, and is the sort of thing no government agency should ever do, to engage in extreme understatement.
Taping King, or anyone, without a warrant and a good cause, is damaging to the privacy of the person involved, and may lead to worse.
Showing up at a rally to listen to a speech, say, is only damaging insofar as it leads to further rolling down the slope. The history of our government is that the ball rolls down, gravity being what it is, unless it's actively prevented. And the battle always comes anew.
The main problem facing us now, as much as the evilness of the present or future incumbents, is technology.
It's soon enough going to be more or less impossible for there to be any privacy, if someone is sufficiently interested, and I don't see much hope of the law holding back that fact. Not without passing a law banning electronics. (Let's not even get to how nanotech will come into play.)
David Brin has been arguing for more than a decade that therefore we should just give up the notion of privacy. I certainly am repelled by that view, but I don't have what I feel is a fully adequate refutation of it. That I don't like something isn't going to be enough to stop it.
This is a longer-term issue than that of the present incumbent, but it's not going to be going away. Not unless we all decide we're Turning Amish. (And most Amish use more tech than most people imagine, but I digress.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 05:30 PM
"Gary: I didn't mean to."
I'm sure. Nonetheless, Arkin was clearly referring to the NSA activity, and that only, and you rang the FBI activity into it. It's useful in a discussion nof fruit salad (I'll unpack that metaphor if need be), but when you use evidence of what the FBI is doing to say that Arkin is wrong about what the NSA is doing, you miss your target. That's another way of putting my point.
"In fact, I think that the FBI is watching PETA and the ACLU, while the DOD's Counterintelligence Field Activity is watching the Quakers and the people protesting Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
I expect so, but Arkin was speaking of neither. NSA=!CIFA or FBI. That's all.
I was working from memory of Arkin's piece, which I read when it first appeared, until this paragraph, by the way, but I just went to double-check my memory, and he's entirely clear: his first words are "Yesterday's New York Times editorial on National Security Agency spying in the United States ...."
So, alas, and it brings me no pleasure to say it, I fear that when you said "Apparently, he was wrong," you were wrong. But it's useful to know you're not, in fact, perfect.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 05:39 PM
Quakers are dangerous.
Quaker children are reared on stories about Quaker role-models breaking the law, going to jail, and following their conscience regardless of what the public perception of "right" is.
Quakers are the radical extremist wing of Christianity: it's a mystery to me how they've acquired and retained their cover identity as cute harmless fluffy bunnies.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | December 20, 2005 at 05:41 PM
Incidentally, Arkin today strikes me as fairly spot-on. (Not comprehensive; just accurate in what he says, which he generally is, in my experience.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 05:43 PM
"Quakers are the radical extremist wing of Christianity: it's a mystery to me how they've acquired and retained their cover identity as cute harmless fluffy bunnies."
It's the oats.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 05:47 PM
Br/n on on privacy, if interested. Mind, Br/n can be a jerk. (Of course, so can I.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 05:53 PM
Mind, Br/n can be a jerk.
This will be the first thing by him I've read without talking chimps in it.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 06:01 PM
It's the oats.
Funny.
Posted by: Ugh | December 20, 2005 at 06:06 PM
It's the oats.
And the pacifism.
Posted by: Nell | December 20, 2005 at 06:06 PM
I think General Gonzales and Prof Sunstein need to take into account that FISA has a specific provision for what happens after a declaration of war. If Congress "declared war" by means of the AUMF, then we're in a situation controlled by 50 U.S.C. section 1811.
It would be strange indeed if the Executive could argue that it has greater authority to engage in this, that, or the other in time of undeclared war, as opposed to declared war.
It's also worth noting that when FISA was passed in 1978, Congress knew that there was such a thing as wars without congressional declaration, and that it was at pains to include the D word in section 1811. Rather than just say "time of war" or something similar.
Posted by: CharleyCarp | December 20, 2005 at 06:24 PM
This will be the first thing by him I've read without talking chimps in it.
Read Earth. Aside from being a pretty good book on its own merits, it rings prescient in all sorts of ways--some good, some bad, some not easily sorted. But it's thought-provoking, which in my eyes is probably one of the highest praises a book can be given.
Posted by: Catsy | December 20, 2005 at 06:32 PM
Me: This will be the first thing by him I've read without talking chimps in it.
Catsy: Read Earth.
Actually, I lied for comic effect. I have read Earth, and have been terrified of tiny Brazilian black holes orbiting Earth's core for several years now.
I've also read The Postman and several other non-uplift novels by him as well.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 06:45 PM
"This will be the first thing by him I've read without talking chimps in it."
Since this won't give away anything about private encounters, or things he's done to cause respectable well-known writer friends of mine to pour a Coke on his head, or such-like (not that that didn't get dozens, if not hundreds, of posts thither and yon, particularly on some LiveJournals), I only recently, as in, maybe 3-6 weeks ago, accidentally noticed he had a blog, and dropped by, and found him in a long argument with his commenters who were bitching that he didn't embed links; after many attempts to teach him, he declared that it was impossibly hard, and clearly not worth bothering with, and people should quit bothering him with trivia because he had Important Things to Think.
I paraphrase. Though it shouldn't be hard to find. (Here.)
I think he's written some quite good books, of a certain subcategory of the genre. And he's quite bright. In certain ways, as we all are.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 06:53 PM
GF: I think he's written some quite good books,...
His Uplift series is brilliant. If what they describe isn't how the millions of races that populate the universe work, well, by God, it should be like that. And as a recent article I read indicates that scientists are working on geneticly modified chimps that have speech capibility, then we're certainly on our way to galactic citizenhood.
Ahem. Sorry, geeky scifi threadjack. Back to the oat-loving pacificist Quakers.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | December 20, 2005 at 07:12 PM
"just wanted to let the blogosphere know how cool you[hilzoy] are."
The blogosphere is catching on. Speaking of geeky sci-fi threadjacks, I keep wanting to as about a guy first-named Hannes, but it is a very idle curiosity.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | December 20, 2005 at 07:35 PM
"I keep wanting to as about a guy first-named Hannes, but it is a very idle curiosity."
Oh, should I mention stuff about friends' contacts with Mr. Bok, or finding some originals in a used book store?
I have a variety of fanzines that had original art from him in circulations of only a couple of hundred copies. A master. (You'd likely also enjoy a Boskone Art Show, or, better, a Worldcon's, which tend to have historical retrospectives; all originals, of course, from everyone's private collections.)
I guess only in an open thread, if there's frowning on thread drift going on (although, FWIW, it goes on about me all the time, and I've never thought to complain; I was brought up in a different tradition on Usenet, but, of course, this isn't Usenet).
Oops.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 07:53 PM
as a recent article I read indicates that scientists are working on geneticly modified chimps that have speech capibility, then we're certainly on our way to galactic citizenhood.
Perhaps, and there's this which hilzoy picked up. Why do I have this sinking suspicion we are going to be like the majority of those species described in the series and not the thinking out of the box types that Brin portrays us as?
Posted by: liberal japonicus | December 20, 2005 at 08:28 PM
"Perhaps, and there's this "
Pretty well debunked, that was. It's about 80% crap. If you stop and think for a moment, even with no clue whatever about such programs, tell me how a dolphin fires a dart, toxic or otherwise?
Didn't we discuss that this was nonsense on this blog?
Oh, yeah, I'm right. (Well, of course.) LJ, check the last comment on the ObWings thread you just cited.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 09:07 PM
"[A]as a recent article I read indicates that scientists are working on geneticly modified chimps that have speech capibility, then we're certainly on our way to galactic citizenhood."
I couldn't get into the Uplift books. I think I didn't like any of the characters.
"Genetically modified talking animals" makes me think of Cordwainer Smith's underpeople stories - and that outcome seems more likely to me than the uplift model.
On topic: The distinction between the FBI spying on Quakers, vegans, et al., and Bush's illegal wiretaps, strikes me as a meaningless one.
One, Bush has already broken the law, and stated outright he intends to continue doing so.
Two, he has already allowed, or approved, or ordered the FBI to spy on individuals and groups which have nothing to do with terrorism.
Therefore, believing he hasn't already, or won't, allow, approve, or order the NSA to wiretap individuals and groups which have nothing to do with terrorism is a leap of faith tantamount to stepping off a cliff and hoping you'll grow wings before you go splat.
Posted by: CaseyL | December 20, 2005 at 09:15 PM
Hmmm...Nixon, as a cute fluffy bunny? I'm not seeing it.
As a general comment, I'm thinking that history repeats, and sometimes more frequently than one might imagine.
Not offering that as vindication of this or damnation of that other thing, just offering it in a sort of wonder at how odd life is in politics. Maybe it's just this country, but I'm thinking we're all weird.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | December 20, 2005 at 10:03 PM
Slarti: "I'm thinking we're all weird."
Speaking only of and for myself, I agree ;)
Posted by: hilzoy | December 20, 2005 at 10:14 PM
Thanks Gary, I just remembered the thread and didn't participate on it. Only so many hours in a day.
As a general comment, I'm thinking that history repeats, and sometimes more frequently than one might imagine. (link to Cato Institute)
Gee, I wonder how much the writer got paid for that one? ;^)
Posted by: liberal japonicus | December 20, 2005 at 10:28 PM
"...is a leap of faith tantamount to stepping off a cliff and hoping you'll grow wings before you go splat."
Good thing for me that I didn't get anywhere close to that cliff, or make any such argument.
Posted by: Gary Farber | December 20, 2005 at 10:30 PM
Not having seen Hilzoy respond (she's been understandably busy in other threads, she probably stopped reading when the sf comments hit, and I hear she has a life, too), I noticed with interest that Howard Kurtz demonstrated the right way to make the argument, without erroneous conflation:
Perfectly easy to do: makes the point, while noting the fact that we're talking about similar -- but different -- but similar! -- things done by different agencies.Posted by: Gary Farber | December 21, 2005 at 04:52 PM
Gary, Hilzoy responded fairly clearly when she said More responding to Arkin, on what "the government" is doing.
Arkin made an assertion about what "the government" was not doing, and Hilzoy pointed out that "the government" was indeed doing that. If you look extremely closely it may be apparent that when Arkin wrote "the government" he meant "the NSA," but it was at the very least careless writing and Hilzoy was right to call him on it. "The government" includes more than "The NSA." If Arkin can't be bothered to make that distinction, I don't see why Hilzoy is obliged to make it for him.
(It's also worth noting that Arkin's quotation of the NY Times is drastically out of context; the original NY Times editorial read "The intelligence agency already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose." It doesn't in fact suggest spying on domestic political opponents; 'you' is being used as a variable.)
Posted by: Matt Weiner | December 22, 2005 at 12:17 AM
Quakers: Evil incarnate.
Ever wonder where we get the word "earthquake" from? Huh? Ever think about WHY we have earthquakes?
All that dancing on the fault lines.
You are so clueless.
:)
Posted by: Telios | December 29, 2005 at 10:25 AM