The United States of Surveillance?
By Dennis Sanders | Related entries in Breaking News, TechnologyBack in 1999, I went on a seminary sponsored trip to Hong Kong and mainland China. We spent two weeks in Hong Kong and a week in Yunan Province in Western China. The purpose of the trip was to worship with Christians in small villages not far from the provincial capital of Kunming. It was interesting that we were escorted by government officials when we went to the villages. They said they were there to “protect us”, but we all knew they were watching us and the villagers as well. The professor who was with us was usually asked to preach (he spoke fluent Mandarin), but he had to make sure that he actually wasn’t preaching but teaching, since the government forbade outsiders from preaching.
It was my first experience with a society where surviellance was part of the fabric.
Upon hearing the news today that the National Security Agency has a huge database of domestic phone calls I thought about my experience in China. No, equating the two. But there is something unsettleing in knowing that my calls were probably monitored. Even though my local phone company, Qwest, chose to bow out of this program, I did have wireless and cable phone from some of the other big names involved.
Listen, I understand we need to be watchful of terrorist cells, but do we really need to collect data on every phone call made stateside? And where does this all stop?
America is a society of laws and civil protections. I’m all for security, but it should not be at the expense of my freedom.
The goal of terror is to basically scare the bejeezsus out of a society and make them paranoid. More and more I think that this administration is acting out of fear instead of using their head. They think that the can just give a little bit of our freedoms in order to save America. But in the end, they are weaking on nation because they are fearful.
National security is important, but it has to based on sound facts, not on fear.
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May 11th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
“The goal of terror is to basically scare the bejeezsus out of a society and make them paranoid. More and more I think that this administration is acting out of fear instead of using their head. They think that the can just give a little bit of our freedoms in order to save America. But in the end, they are weaking on nation because they are fearful.”
The trouble I have, which is the trouble I’ve had for years and years now, is that I could say the exact same thing about the press. Gee, I can be fearful of terrorist activity, or I could be fearful of my government. In some sense, it’s a wash – so my gut says fearing terrorists is still wiser for the time being.
May 11th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
But Paul, how much of this fear is warranted? I mean objectively, not according to Bush and Cheney?
May 11th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
The NSA Code
The NSA contends that they are simply looking for “patterns” in the massive database of telephone numbers they have collected. In fact, the kinds of patterns NSA analysts are looking for may be the key to winning the War on Terror.
May 12th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I completely agree with you. I want to be protected but not at the expense of innocent people’s privacy. I had no problem when it was just the suspect and the individual being monitored but when it is monitoring innocent citizens calls who have done nothing wrong and have no intention to, it is something to be concerned with.
May 15th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
JP: The date on this article is probably going to guarantee you never see this, but here goes:
Your phrasing implies you don’t think news from Bush and Cheney is objective. What, then, do you consider objective?
If you say MSM, then I’d have to force you to be more specific, as MSM covers a lot of things.
If you say AP, or NYT, or WaPo, or WSJ, or FoxNews, or any other single outlet, we could debate the objectivity of any of these until we lost interest without consensus, as each is represented by many individuals, from reporters to editors. Generally, the more specific we get, the better a case we could make one way or the other for objectivity. In the end, we’d have a complex landscape of shysters, honest witnesses, layabouts, cowards, heroes, demagogues, thinktankers, and scholars.
Which seems to put us right back at the start. Given a huge array of information of varying verisimilitude from sources of varying repute, I’m inclined to throw up my hands to some extent and rely on a general read – but your personal filters and mine may cause each of us to come up with very different general reads. It’s a chaotic system, mathematically speaking; final outcome is sensitively dependent upon our initial conditions.
And once again, right now, I’m still much less inclined to worry about someone who says he wants to check my phone records (which the phone company has anyway) than someone who says he wants to blow me up.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Good investigative journalism (like border security, environmental safeguards, health care, etc) is something that each citizen needs. And as such, the free market is not equipped to regulate it.
Network news, 24-hr cable news, & major newspapers are all profit-driven & therefore don’t act in the public interest.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m not advocating for a gov’t takeover of the media – but until we can figure out a way to remove the profit motive from journalism, we will not be a well served citizenry & will continue to be fear-bated (“don’t let your child be the next victim”, “women, you can’t afford to miss this report”, “could it happen in your neighborhood? – tune in at 10pm”, etc)
Fear enduces emotional rather than logical responses & therefore will always work to our detriment. Anyone who hasn’t seen “Bowling For Columbine” – i urge you to see it. It opened my eyes.
Instead of fearing terrorism & reducing our freedoms & liberties, we should be working to reduce the demand for terrorist acts. Just like the failed “war on drugs” – focusing solely on stopping supply will not work. Let’s learn that lesson from our past failure & apply it to this “war on terrorism” before it’s too late.
February 11th, 2007 at 4:16 am
I was in Hong Kong and other parts of China for a few months, and I didn’t have any officals following after me. If you are news reporter, that might be. But I feel pretty safe anyway.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Your article makes sense extremely, I supports