What are reasonable limits on our privacy?
A second edition of the FBI’s “Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide” is currently under revision and will be out on October 1. Is this a new and improved version? Hardly. While emotional rants from organizations like the ACLU are expected in this and all similar cases, a saner review tells you that it’s just more of the same—and that’s the problem. What are reasonable limits on our privacy? How much of our privacy are we willing to lose in order to protect ourselves from criminal elements and terrorism?
I had problems with the original document (circa 2008, I believe), which I suppose was an outgrowth of 9/11 hysteria and our intelligence services losing the ball at the very least or scoring an auto-goal at the worst. Our answer (more correctly, Mr. Bush’s answer) was the 2002 Homeland Security Act which created the behemoth we today know as DHS as well as many new interagency rivalries that still need to be resolved (I tried to portray some of this in my serialized novel Evil Agenda). This act was preceded by the infamous Patriot Act, of course.
The situation nowadays is that people in the U.S. accept more intrusive invasions of their privacy than ever before, from TSA agents giving them a full-body pat-down at airports to FBI agents surreptitiously looking for information in their garbage. As a writer, I suppose I’m a more public persona than the average citizen. In general, the more public you are, the more careful you have to be. When you have the notoriety of Lady Gaga or Ron Paul, for example, you have to tiptoe through the tulips (some clichés are downright hilarious), always ready to run from the paparazzi (“media” would be a more pc word, I suppose). However, FBI agents are the least of your worries, unless you live on Ruby Ridge in Idaho.
For the most part, I’ve shielded myself from all this via steps I’ve already taken to protect myself from identity theft. Very public personas like the ones already mentioned generally try to shield themselves too, via bodyguards, fast limo drivers, helicopters at the ready, and so forth—or a dress made from raw meat, in the case of our Lady (a salmonella suit?). So, what’s the big deal? Frankly, I don’t care if the FBI knows that I belong to an un-American radical organization like The Nature Conservancy—or write a blog that often makes fun of government waste and inefficiency.
I’m also not planning to blow up the New York subway in the near future, although I might write about it in my fiction (The Midas Bomb comes close). Moreover, that shredding of old documents and papers to protect me from identity theft should also deter FBI agents. If I had any plans to violently overthrow the government in my garbage, they would probably be realized before agents pasted all the little pieces of paper together (unless they became skilled at it with all those hanging chads while moonlighting down in Florida during the 2000 presidential election).
The big deal is the constant whittling away at citizens’ basic rights. Let’s analyze some of the new and improved guidelines. I’ve already mentioned FBI ops involving garbage (are there courses in Quantico for this?). This and other changes relate to the definition of low-level “assessment,” effectively lowering the bar on what’s required. Now agents will be able to pry into the lives of people and organizations proactively without firm evidence (before it depended more on how a judge might define “firm evidence”). Moreover, agents will be able to use informants, perform physical surveillance, and conduct interviews without identifying themselves or their true purpose. Race and ethnic background could be used as a factor in opening an investigation. An agent will be able to surreptitiously attend up to five meetings of an organization, such as a religious group (any more meetings and he might be converted).
These changes are now being negotiated with Congress and with civil rights organizations so they are not exactly written in stone. Comparing them with some of the things the Patriot Act allows, or what’s going on in Gitmo, or what happened in Abu Ghraib and the CIA’s off-shore torture chambers, might leave you wondering what all the fuss is about. As I said, it’s about privacy. The FBI has come a long way, after all, from lady-in-red Mr. Hoover and his surveillance of suspected commie infiltrators (J. Edgar’s definition of commie was anyone who was not J. Edgar). Now most feds just want the same thing you do, namely, to protect this country and its people from harm. (They might not agree with you on how to achieve that.)
The real question: How much privacy do you want? There’s a generational component to the answer. Many kids, and childish grown-ups too, hang it all out there on the internet for the world to see (reference to a certain “retired” Congressperson is intentional). Loss of privacy for many people is not such a big deal. I’ve caught stuff on Oprah and Dr. Phil that leaves me shaking my head. Yet other people, especially older folks like me who lived through the stressful years of the Cold War, or the more elderly who remember Kristallnacht and the dark days that followed—the KGB and SS atrocities, respectively—shudder at even thinking about any little steps toward fascism.
The debate about the correct balance between citizens’ security and citizens’ rights to privacy will be one that endures as long as governments endure. There is always the clear and present danger that government officials will create a perceived threat in order to solidify and maintain their hold on power, or simply to move forward with a questionable agenda. In a democracy, we must always be watchful so that this doesn’t happen and, if it does, have mechanisms in place to correct for it. The possibility of the former doesn’t bother me as much as the lack of the latter. There are too many instances in American history where the public has been deceived by politicians who are pushing forward an agenda that ultimately has a negative effect on America’s future.
Many people shrug and say, “That’s why we have the media.” My comment is: the media can only do so much, especially in times like the present, where the media is just as polarized as the population at large. “Remember the Maine” is an old example of this; the WMDs in Iraq is a very recent one. In the first example, the press, unwittingly or not, led the U.S. into the Spanish-American War. In the second example, incredible amounts of financial and human resources were consumed by the maws of war in order to topple a two-bit dictator who, at the very least, served the positive function of holding an ethnically diverse country together (albeit with institutionalized murder). If Hussein, why not others? My answer: Because we can’t afford it!
Consequently, it’s not just the little picture of the FBI wanting to upgrade their document. One must review this action within the big picture of what we want America to become. I’m willing to hedge my bets towards more privacy and less intrusion from big brother in order to preserve a free and democratic society. You might have other thoughts, but, if you do, buy a shredder and carefully watch the guy next to you in that church pew.
