Protect Me from the Protectors

Senate confirmation hearings on General Michael Hayden raised a number of questions about the NSA surveillance program. While the devil is always in the details, let me risk oversimplifying the arguments pro and con: one side says such programs make us safer without unacceptably invading our liberties; the other side says—to plagiarize New Hampshire’s motto—live free or die.

 That’s the wrong debate.

Leave aside the troubling issue of government honesty and accountability. For the sake of argument, let’s assume the Administration played by the rules. Let’s further assume that intrusions on our liberties are, as proponents assert, minimal. What are the risks and rewards of this data mining operation? Is it making us safer—or is it actually compromising our safety?

Whatever its effectiveness in protecting us from terrorists—a hotly debated proposition within the FBI and CIA—this program and the “War on Terror” create significant non-terrorism-related security risks. As one scholar warns, the executive’s power to do whatever he deems necessary to “conduct war” will “displace the area previously assumed to fall within the criminal justice system.” In other words, the President will increasingly have a choice whether to categorize threats as matters of national security or matters of crime and criminal justice. We are already creating a “parallel law enforcement structure” not subject to constitutional restrictions. It will be increasingly tempting to argue that the criminal justice system is too inflexible and outmoded to use during the war on terror.  

If that is too abstract a concern, consider the very immediate, practical dangers posed by the existence of such a database. To begin with, it vastly increases opportunities for identity theft. Even if (as the Administration insists) conversations aren’t being monitored, numbers are. How many times have you used your telephone’s keypad to punch in bank codes or credit card numbers? All it would take to give thieves access to that information is one breach in computer security, or one  NSA employee with financial problems or dubious ethics.

How about blackmail?  What if government had evidence that an annoying activist or legislator was calling a phone sex line? Do you think that information might be used to get votes changed, investigations dropped, or public criticisms muted? It happened to Martin Luther King—and that was before we got so technologically sophisticated. The government has already used NSA information to identify who is leaking information to the press. If whistleblowers know their calls can be tracked, how long before we stop getting any inside information about government wrongdoing?

American privacy is vanishing. Our telephone companies willingly sold the records on each of us to the government. For money. Other businesses—Amazon, Google, your doctor, your insurance company—amass huge amounts of data on us all. We trade this information for convenience, and like many people, I have considered that trade mutually beneficial. If I knew the information might be turned over to government, I would have second thoughts, and I imagine many other people would as well.

For most Americans, Big Brother poses a much greater threat than Osama Bin Ladin.

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Confronting Ambiguity

This is the time of year when I envy colleagues who teach math and science—courses where final examinations are filled with questions to which there are clear right and wrong answers. Students are comfortable with the certainties of such subjects; they have far more difficulty dealing with questions that are often answered—at least in part—with “it depends.”   

 

When undergraduates are told that the “right” answer consists of identifying and analyzing the issue—and not just choosing the correct outcome—they can find it positively disorienting. They tend to want clarity and bright lines–rules that can be memorized and regurgitated. That works when the question is two plus two; it’s dicier for most areas of real life.   

 

Despite all the rhetoric that gets thrown around these days about the differences between conservatives and liberals (whatever meaning those abused terms currently retain), I think it is this discomfort with the ambiguities of reality that best defines the contemporary political divide. Conservatives and liberals may be guided by different philosophies of government and different views of virtue, but most recognize the inherent messiness of life and acknowledge the dangers of too-rigid, too-doctrinaire approaches to our common civic life.

 

There are people of all political persuasions, however, who find the absence of moral certainty unbearable. We all know folks who began their civic life as passionate believers in one “ism” or another, and who reacted to disillusionment by embracing an opposing, equally extreme philosophy. Talk radio and shout television programs are filled with ex-communists who have fervently embraced right-wing dogma. Bookstore shelves display manifestos by former right-wing activists now devoted to unmasking the agendas of their erstwhile culture-war colleagues.

 

These are people who find the inevitable ambiguities of real life not just distasteful, but terrifying. Much like those ex-cons who can’t cope with life outside the predictability of prison structure and who purposely re-offend in order to be sent back, they need the psychic comfort that comes with imposed discipline—no matter how confining.

 

For better or worse, however, political and civic life requires compromise. Thoughtful conservatives, libertarians and liberals can generally find some common ground that makes governing possible. They understand that no one gets his own way all the time, and that an acceptable middle-ground is no small achievement in a society as diverse as ours. Zealots, however, find compromise not just distasteful, but evil. They don’t acknowledge the ambiguities; they not only don’t see shades of gray or moral complexity, they believe that people who do are the “real” enemy.

 

This dynamic plays out on both sides of the political spectrum, but in Indiana it has been most notable in the Republican primaries of recent years, where moderately conservative lawmakers have been defeated by people campaigning on the proposition that moderation itself is evil. Larry Borst and Bob Garton were not defeated by opponents debating the nuances of policy. They were victims of holy wars.

 

And even undergraduates understand that holy wars will ultimately victimize us all.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ten Amendments Day

In March, the Maryland legislature held a hearing on the state’s proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage. Jamin Raskin, professor of law at American University—a noted constitutional scholar—had been invited to testify. When he concluded his remarks, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied, "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." The room erupted into applause, and the exchange has since circulated widely on the internet.

 

I thought about that story when I saw that the Center for Inquiry is sponsoring Ten Amendments Day. There is a special website—www.tenamendments.org—devoted to the Bill of Rights, with special emphasis on the First Amendment liberties of speech and conscience. The local chapter plans a May 7th event at IUPUI, with a reading of the Ten Amendments, videos on Freedom of Religion and Freedom to Dissent, and a panel discussion.

 

The impetus for Ten Amendments Day was “Ten Commandments Day,” an effort by Christian Right groups to rally support for posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings. Such postings would require amending the First Amendment, since the Establishment Clause forbids government endorsement or promotion of religion.

 

Whatever the reason, Ten Amendments Day is a great idea. Too few Americans know much early American history; fewer still have ever read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers and the arguments for and against the addition of a Bill of Rights to America’s constitution. Without that background, it is impossible to appreciate how radically America’s constitutional system changed what was then thought to be the natural order of things.

 

Before the United States, the right of a government to exercise authority over its individual subjects was taken for granted—indeed, it was thought to be divinely ordained. America’s Founders asked audacious, previously unimaginable questions: what is the proper role of the state? What are the limits of its legitimate authority? Do individual citizens have rights that governments must respect? If so, what are those rights?

 

Democratic processes are important, but America was not originally conceived as a democracy as we currently understand that term. The emphasis was on individual liberty, and the creation of checks and balances intended to limit the reach of official power. As important as many other governing innovations were, and have been, the real genius of the “American experiment” was this recognition that government’s power over the individual conscience must be limited—that the important question was not “who is right and who is wrong” but “who gets to decide.”    

 

Raskin’s riposte went to the heart of that important truth: Americans consult a wide variety of holy and inspirational texts for moral guidance, but we all pledge to uphold the same Ten Amendments.   

 

 

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Pride and Prejudice

We are nearing the time of year when many communities host their annual Gay Pride events.

I remember the first time I attended such a celebration, nearly twenty years ago, as a PFlag mom. Attendance back then was dominated by the most “out” members of the community—there were “leather” guys, dykes on bikes and drag queens in abundance (not, as Seinfeld might have said, that there was anything wrong with that), but few others. More recently, a casual “drop-in” at Indianapolis’ event, at least, might not have known what the celebration was all about. These days, booths are as likely to offer real estate services or symphony tickets as AIDS information or bar locations, and the crowd is a broad and far more representative cross-section of the entire community: moms with strollers, political candidates and representatives of the Gay Chamber of Commerce now mingle with the leather boys, the PFlag moms and dads and all the others.

 

Part of the reason the crowds and booths have changed is that society has changed, and mostly for the better. Earlier Pride celebrations flew in the face of social conventions that made gay or lesbian identity a source of shame, not pride. Gay people who were closeted rarely took the chance of attending and being seen, and straight people who attended often had their stereotypes confirmed rather than dispelled. As society has become more open, and many more people have come out, these events have become larger and much more representative of the gay population as a whole. If the early events tended to be defiant—even “in your face”—occasions of the “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” variety, today’s are more likely to be get-togethers of a community of folks who have a lot in common. Some of what they have in common is the prejudice they experience from the wider culture, of course, but the way that bigotry is usually expressed has changed. Overt hostility and physical danger, while still a problem, have been largely replaced by efforts at political disenfranchisement and social marginalization.

 

Disenfranchisement and marginalization may seem strange causes for celebration, but they actually represent progress.

 

As a result, the upcoming Pride festivals will be paradoxical occasions for looking at how far the community has come—and how far it still has to go.  Progress has been made, but the backlash against that progress is in full swing. The community is getting “whipsawed;” every time a court decision favorable to gay civil rights is handed down, it enrages and energizes the fundamentalist Right.

 

A number of states have passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, and several more will be attempting to do so this year. There is a concerted effort to prevent gays and lesbians from adopting children. (Apparently, God would rather children languish in foster care than be raised in loving same-sex households.) Most states’ civil rights laws still do not include protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Republicans are facing potentially enormous losses in the 2006 elections, and will undoubtedly use anti-gay and anti-immigrant rhetoric to rally their base and get them to the polls.

 

Time is on the side of equal rights. Poll after poll confirms what I see anecdotally in my classes—young people are far less threatened by genuine equality, far more likely to have (and know they have) gay friends and relatives, and far more likely to support equal application of the laws of the land. The challenge at this point comes down to buying time—keeping the states and the federal government from passing laws that will slow the process of achieving necessary reforms, and make positive change much more difficult.

 

What the GLBT community needs most right now is divided government.

 

So—as you all head off to your local Pride fairs and parades, here’s my advice, for what it’s worth: take time to savor the progress that has been made. Have a drink, listen to the music, kibbitz with the friends you see. Buy a music CD, hire a realtor, join a health club—whatever.

 

 But don’t forget to stop at the booth where you register to vote, the one where you volunteer for a political campaign, and the one where you donate to an organization working for equal rights. You’ll be proud that you did.

 

 

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The Politics of Morality

Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of our current political leaders is their willingness to lecture the rest of us on the importance of morality. Whether it is a self-righteous diatribe about a “culture of life” or an insistence on “abstinence-based” sex education, this fixation on our personal behaviors evidently consumes far more of their time and energy than trying to making health care affordable, or balancing the budget.

 

We’re beginning to see just how “moral” these people who’ve cornered the market on virtue really are.

 

I’m not talking about the morality of things like the war in Iraq, or efforts to deport all illegal aliens, or tax policies that line the pockets of campaign contributors at the expense of the most vulnerable, although those are undoubtedly appropriate topics of discussion. No, I’m talking about the garden-variety, “don’t lie, don’t steal” kinds of morality. How are the guys in charge doing on those homelier virtues?

 

In Congress, the Jack Abramoff scandal has put Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham in prison, and has led to the indictment of so-much-holier-than-thou Tom Delay. As many as twenty more lawmakers may be implicated before it’s all over. Bill (“Terri Schaivo looks fine”) Frist is under investigation for securities fraud.

 

In the Administration of our current moralist-in-chief, we have a bonanza: Scooter Libby has been indicted for felony obstruction of justice (and Karl Rove is still under investigation) in the Valerie Plame “outing.” Domestic policy advisor and self-proclaimed Christian conservative Claude Allen has been arrested for felony shoplifting. White House procurement officer David Safarian has been arrested for corruption. At Homeland Security, the agency created by the President to protect us all from the bad guys, not one but two high-ranking officials have been arrested—one for kiddie porn, and the other for trying to have sex with a 14-year-old he “met” over the internet.

 

These are the guys who have been lecturing us about godliness and morality!

 

Maybe these are just examples of age-old “do as I say not as I do” moral smugness. Or maybe these politicians are using religion and religious folks for cynical political advantage. (A recent study called “False Promises” accuses the GOP of deliberately using homophobia to win support from African-Americans; others have suggested that immigration fears are being used in 2006 in much the same way gays were used to mobilize the Republican base in 2004.) Whatever the explanation, the consequences for the country are nothing short of appalling.

 

These Republican leaders have used the language of morality to set American against American. The older rhetoric of “we the people” has been eclipsed by dark references to “them” and “us.” Now, as these favorites of the Religious Right turn out to be considerably less than godly, Americans are reacting by becoming more cynical. As GOP apologists claim “everybody does it,” many citizens assume that’s true. It isn’t—but the perception is profoundly corrosive of trust, and without trust, democratic government cannot endure.

 

It’s enough to give morality a bad name.

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