A Little Perspective
Theory, Practice and National
Security
The recent flap over the National Security Agency’s
surveillance of Al Qaeda-related telephone calls is one of those
issues that illuminates some of the significant fault lines in
conservative thought. Interestingly, the overwhelming number of
leftists out there a) don’t particularly have a problem
with the techniques used (as long as they are used in support
of their ideas) and b) somehow think that it is an impeachable
offense if President Bush uses them. No, as usual, it is on the
right that the serious discussion is occurring.
I recently had a prolonged discussion of these issues with my
18 year old son, Patrick. Patrick is at that glorious age when
“theoretical libertarianism” seems to hold the answers.
Bless him for thinking that. Eighteen year old libertarians tend
to grow up to be solid adult conservatives (especially once they
have children of their own). But at his current stage, he is not
at all pleased with the President’s actions.
I find that the older I get, the more useless (and more dangerous)
“theory” seems. Theory can be useful for setting direction,
but tends to of no value in solving real problems in the real
world. The NSA flap is a perfect example of this. Those who are
most concerned about what is happening - who in theory are concerned
about abuse of civil liberties - are unable to point to an actual
infringement of civil liberties. Those who profess concern about
separation of powers are also concerned in theory. For no tangible
damage to any branch of government can be ascertained.
Here are some of the “theoretical” objections to
the Administration’s policies that I have heard, along with
the succinct “practical conservative’s” responses.
Theory: Wiretapping is a de facto Infringement on civil
liberties. Warrantless wiretapping is worse.
No it isn’t. Surveillance - electronic or otherwise - is
a perfectly legitimate and rather mundane tool for law enforcement
and national security. Always has been. Always will be. Because
any surreptitious surveillance has the potential to be
abused, a wise government will put some safeguards around the
practice. But those safeguards do not define the legitimacy of
the practice. In the current circumstances they were deemed a
roadblock. Proceeding without them was the right thing to do.
Even if, in the course of legitimate national security efforts,
the government gathers information on a totally innocent third
party, nobody’s civil liberties have been violated unless
something illegitimate is done with that information. It is what
is done with gathered information, not the gathering itself,
that represents a threat. Nobody has hinted in any way, shape
or form that the Bush Administration has done anything wrong with
the data it has gathered. So take a chill pill!
Theory: The more information the government gathers,
the more dangerous it is.
Quite the contrary. It is relatively easy to turn specific detailed
data (say, my bank account number and Social Security Number)
into actionable information that can cause me harm. It is mind-numbingly
difficult to turn huge masses of data into specific actionable
materials. The largest challenge of the Information Age is to
subdue the cacophony of background data “noise” and
end up with something useful. The government may search e-mail
data for patterns and keywords, but it cannot and will not find
out what I think of Ted Kennedy or what I am having for dinner
tonight. For people to get hysterical because the government is
gathering masses of data for the purposes of fighting terrorists
is just juvenile. Think before you shriek.
Theory: The President broke the law.
No, he didn’t. This one is really very simple. The Constitution
is the highest law of the land. The Constitution gives the President
responsibility for executing national defense. Congress can write
any law it wishes. The President can sign any law he chooses.
None of the that can invalidate the Constitutional authority of
the President. Simply put, Congress can declare war, and allocate
funds. Outside of that it cannot tell him what to do when it comes
to national defense.
This point raises an interesting corollary issue. It seems the
current generation of young citizens have been fed the notion
that the Supreme Court has supreme authority over what the Constitution
means. While the duties of the Court routinely put it in the position
of having to determine whether or not given laws are consistent
with the Constitution, it has no more authority over what the
Constitution means than does the Executive or the Legislative
branches. I am very thankful that - despite the increasing activism
of the Court - it seems to understand this.
In a perfect world we wouldn’t need to balance civil liberties
against security concerns. But in the world we are stuck with,
having a President who acts vigorously to defend the country and,
according to what we know, has done nothing to harm civil liberties
in practice, that’s a pretty good deal.
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