FISA, Spying and What We Have To Fear

Earlier today, in discussing this shameful turn of events, I was hit yet again with the specious argument "What the heck do you people have to hide. If you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't have any fear of reprisal". This is an argument I know I have had with others before, but it's been a while, and I feel the need to expound.

The problem with that argument is that it entirely ignores the nature of slippery slopes. We must remember that we have do not have laws to protect the guilty, we have laws to protect the innocent, and to prevent those little white lies, skeletons and minor crimes of which we are all guilty from rendering to the State undue power over us.

I drive my Prius very carefully. It gets better gas mileage if I stick to the speed limit, so I have a personal as well as a legal interest in not exceeding it, and yet it is not uncommon for me to drive three to five mph over the speed limit. Yes, it is technically in violation of the law. It is also a lesser violation than most of the other cars which whiz past me like a cheetah past a snail, and a lesser violation than most police officers will care to pull me over for. Nonetheless, it is a violation, and in an extremely controlling country, such violations could be used against me.

But the thing is, even if you haven't done anything actionable, do you have any secrets? Suppose you've had an affair, or even fantasized about someone other than your spouse and mentioned it to a friend. Suppose you're gay, but do not feel your family or friends would accept you for it. Suppose you have a fetish for wearing undergarments of the opposite gender. Suppose you have a gambling problem... an embarrassing debt... bill collectors calling... a telephone reprimand from your boss.

All of these are things which might be discussed over the telephone in certain situations. And each of these might be something you wouldn't want to get out. So can you honestly say you have nothing to fear as long as you haven't done anything illegal? Someone out there has access to your secrets. Someone, if they found a reason to consider you an opponent or an enemy could bring out those secrets and use them to blackmail you into capitulation, or make your life difficult by releasing them.

Or suppose you are a recreational drug user. In my life, I have known many, and still do today. I have friends who have mentioned to me when their weekend plans involved marijuana. I do not partake, and on the rare occasion when I've been invited I've always declined, but the point is that I know people who use various and sundry drugs, at various different levels from recreational through full on addictive abuse, and more than one at most (if not all) of those levels. Not just in the past, but still active users.

So imagine you're the recreational pot smoker, and you consider yourself safe under this spying program, because after all, you're no terrorist. They're only looking for terrorists, right? And no one complains too much if a few people are rounded up, because it was just terrorists, as long as the numbers are few, people are willing to assume those rounded up actually are terrorists.

But then consider that there have been attempts in recent years to link drug use to terrorism, claiming that the illegal drug trade funds terrorists (far less so than our extreme national addiction to oil, but why let a little thing like facts get in the way of an argument?). So suppose at some point some Presidential Administration decides to conflate the two, rounding up regular drug users as 'supporters of terrorists'. Did you really not have anything to worry about? Or did the spying program that was "just to find the terrorists" suddenly get used to troll for other forms of law breaking?

Our due process is a recognition of the fact that we're all guilty of something, and that it is simply too much power for the government to wield to be allowed to just sift through our lives looking for the time we drove 80 in a 65 zone or that beer we had at our cousin's birthday six months before we were legal to drink, or the fact that in a moment of pique we idly and without truly meaning it wished the President or other high government official dead. And that is exactly what we have to worry about with warrantless wire tapping.

Today it's terrorists. Tomorrow, they start rounding up my friends and family who use drugs. Then perhaps they come after me for knowing about the drug use and not reporting it. Or for the "seditious" act of believing our President is incompetent and loudly proclaiming same to all who will listen. And as long as they aren't too ham-handed about it, it very well could play out like the old saying "First they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak up, for I wasn't a Jew, then they came for.... and when they came for me there was no one left to speak for me."

We dismiss a few random sweeps as terrorists. They throw in a few of the worst of the drug addicts, and we probably accept it, perhaps are even secretly pleased to have "those people" off of the streets. If they play it properly, when they expand it to a few more recreational users, most people will be so happy with the terror-and-drug fighting success of the earlier program that they don't say much. And by the time enough people wake up and start complaining, it's too late, our liberties are gone.

This is, to be sure, an extreme example. But we can all name countries in which those sorts of things and worse have happened. The old Soviet Union. North Korea. China.

The reason we have our laws and why we must be so strict in adhering to them, even when it makes it a little bit harder for our government to keep us entirely safe, is because it isn't unthinkable that such things could happen in our world, with the wrong people given the right opportunity.

Don't tell me I've got nothing to fear if I'm not a terrorist. That argument relies on the honor and decorum of the very people who have already decided they are not subject to the laws which bind the rest of us.