Tag: NSA

Systems so perfect

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Mike Corgan

“dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”

Man frightened by specter of national spying.
Image by Carlos Latuff, copyright free. (FRA refers to Swedish wiretapping law).

C.S. Lewis wrote those words for his verse play The Rock, but they could just as well apply to U.S. foreign policy and security affairs. (Witness the current daily National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping bombshells.)

We have always been dazzled by our technological prowess when it comes to security. In the American Revolution, the British had muskets, but we had rifles. The Civil War had aerial observation, repeating rifles, railroads, and steam-powered warships. In World War I, every machine gun on all sides had at least one American patent; in World War II, we had long-range bombers that could deliver the atomic bomb.

Nowadays we can listen to everyone everywhere.

Maybe we should take a lesson from our use of the atomic bomb. It took awhile, but many of us finally realized that this was something awesomely and terribly different. In spite of some impassioned calls to do so, neither the U.S. nor any other nation has used nuclear weapons since World War II ended in 1945. In my Navy days we used to deride “capabilities in search of a mission.”

Perhaps we can learn that our ability to eavesdrop on everyone, like our ability to deploy nuclear weapons, has a serious downside. We ought not to use this “system so perfect” everywhere without clear and agreed-upon restraints. Yes, terrorists do present a serious threat to our society–but so does the breakdown of trust between citizens and government and among those who should be our allies and partners in fighting this scourge.

We have incredibly effective, near-perfect systems, like “smart” weapons, drones, electronic intercept equipment, and so on. We humans need to be good and smart, too.

9/11 and the imminent demise of democracy

Posted on by kathiemm

Realistically, we should remember that some people celebrated the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, with glee.

  • Their wildest dream was coming true.
  • All those millions of American TVs tuned in to death, destruction, and devastation.
  • All that fear and anger!
  • It was better even than the Gulf of Tonkin incident!

I am not talking about Arabs or Muslims, the vast majority of whom shared our horror and outrage on 9/11.

I am also not talking about the people our government brands as terrorists or potential terrorists, although terrorists these people may be.

I am talking about Americans, a select group of Americans within the military-industrial complex who profit from wars, who lust for power, who would sell out any of us and call it patriotism.

I am talking about Americans, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly greedy, who enjoy enormous power, who constitute the shadow government hiding, in many cases, behind the shirts of the best elected officials money can buy.

Those Americans watched the relentless videos of the collapse of the towers and saw dollar signs and weapons contracts. They saw a frightened and angry public ready to support the Patriot Act, which accelerated the theft of their rights, the suppression of their freedoms, the death of their democracy, and the empowerment of the shadowy National Security Agency. The overreaching of that agency should appall us all.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who praised Edward Snowden for releasing information about government spying, recently commented that “America is no longer a functioning democracy.”

If democracy is to be revived, if we are to have a fair chance at peace, we need to be critical consumers of the news–and we need to follow the money.

Who wants war and why? Who wants peace and why? What will benefit YOU?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology