Spies like us
By Jim Surber 

“I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here,” declares Police Captain Renault as he orders the closing of Rick’s Nightclub in Casablanca, before replying “Oh, thank you very much,” to a croupier handing him a pile of cash saying, “Your winnings, sir.” 

This memorable scene is relevant to everyday life for reasons that can be as different as the movie’s watchers. 

I think of it as I read and hear current protests and indignation equivalent to: “I’m shocked, shocked, to find that our government is spying on us.” 

If these protests are about an intrusive government performing actions in direct violation of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, the protesters are complete masters of the obvious. 

If the protests are that the current or previous President is the fault, they are just like Captain Renault; but if they decry a government that has been and is becoming increasingly more intrusive because of ever-improving technology, they are spot on. 

Nothing is ever new. 

Revelations of the National Security Agency monitoring of the internet and phone records of millions of Americans surprised some people, and irritated the public as a whole, but it’s simply the latest illumination of the Big Brotherly interest our government has in its citizens. The feds have been tapping into the private lives of Americans without warrants and with the help of private companies for well over a century. It works best with the presence of monopolies. 

What we today call electronic privacy first became an issue in the 1870’s, after Western Union achieved domination over the telegraph system. The monopoly was accused of intercepting and reading its customer’s messages for both financial and political purposes.  Western Union was a known ally of the Republican Party, but Democrats of the day had no choice but to use its wires, at a disadvantage. 

Republicans won the highly-contested presidential election of 1876, in part by an intercepted telegram. The extent of the company’s actions will never be known since, in response to a Congressional inquiry, it destroyed nearly all of the relevant records. 

Today, America has one dominant search engine, one dominant social-networking site, and four phone companies. It is much simpler to monitor internet traffic today than it was a decade ago. While the structure of the information industry often goes unnoticed, it has an enormous effect on how easy the government can spy on citizens. 

It appears logical that from the President on down, government officials sincerely believe that the gathering of telephone and Internet data is vital to the American people’s security. Does that make government spying okay? After all, big companies have been selling our data for many years. 

Is Edward Snowden, the fugitive whistle-blower, a traitor, a hero, or a little of both? 

Snowden says that he fled the country because he did not believe he had a chance for a fair trial. He further said that in the eyes of the government, “the disclosure of secret, criminal and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime.” It’s hard to argue with his statements, just as it is hard for some to admit that they are correct. 

Will governments use any technologies, or corporations, available to them to combat their primary enemies—which apparently includes their populations? 

There are a lot of government agencies with 3-letter acronyms, that along with private corporations have been gathering information on you and me for many, many years; and it made not one damn bit of difference who occupied the White House. 

Actions recently revealed are obviously wrong, but they shouldn’t be surprising. They do lend credence to the proposition that governments are not representative, but have their own power and serve dominant and rich segments of the population. 

As time and technology progress, it is inevitable that the private lives and business of everyday citizens will become more of an open book. But this may become more acceptable due to generational differences, if younger people are less offended than older generations. 

After all, the internet has helped create a somewhat exhibitionist culture, with Facebook as only one example. Polls also indicate that younger people are much less shocked by the possibility of being spied upon by drones. 

The combinations of different technologies can have a numbing effect on the old-fashioned concept of privacy. 

Our children have grown up being constantly watched by security cameras (and now cell phones), using credit cards exclusively, and are heavily involved in social networking. Over time, a very complete profile can easily be constructed of any person regularly using these mediums. 

I believe that we have no concept of the massive capability that is available to government departments, much less their motives. This is no longer some guy in a backroom with headphones. That’s not what happens. Calls, emails, texts, credit card transactions and other items I cannot understand or comprehend are being sucked up by the millions and you’re engaged in the data mining. 

In 2001, a mathematician working for the NSA on a massive data-storage center in Utah said, “The NSA violated the Constitution setting it up. But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way.” 

This is not the doings of Presidents or legislators, past or present. They are merely temporary place-holders along the way. Publicly-funded espionage is a long-time, well-entrenched, unauthorized, and unconstitutional function of our federal government, and likely every government. It is not going to stop and perhaps should not stop. 

Government, like fire, is always a dangerous servant but more fearful as a master. It will always represent a risk to the governed, regardless of its constitution and public oversight. But like fire, government is a necessary evil. 

So, welcome to the 21st century. Privacy is limited to the inside of the walls where you live. Open the curtains, and anything viewed from the outside is not private. If you want real privacy you can always become homeless and stay off the grid. 

We cannot hope to change actions and events that we cannot even accurately describe, anymore than we can stop the progress of technology. Maybe all we can try is to not say, write, or do anything that we would not want displayed in a national medium. 

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad policy.