NSA’s overreach cause for alarm:
We don’t need to be spied on by the NSA to be kept safe
The federal government may have legitimate concerns about protecting our lives, but that doesn’t justify an alarming invasion of privacy.
Many Americans were shocked earlier this year to learn that the National Security Agency has engaged in massive, sustained and systemic surveillance of millions of people. Unfortunately, the ACLU was not surprised to learn how the NSA has abused the law and its authority to invade the privacy of countless Americans.
Government tracking of Americans’ daily activities and movements is not limited to the federal level. Indeed, many state and local agencies track our day-to-day activities, such as our driving habits and how we use our cellphones. We should be concerned about how these bodies intrude upon our privacy rights.
But the media explosion around the NSA’s big-brother behavior has stimulated a necessary and long-overdue conversation about how this one federal agency spies on innocent Americans all too easily. So, it’s worth taking a look at what the NSA says it’s doing, what it’s actually doing and what it has no business even trying to do.
The Patriot Act grants dangerously broad surveillance powers to the federal government. Various entities within the federal government, including the NSA, have relied specifically on Section 215 of the act to justify spying on innocent Americans. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union believes Section 215 is unconstitutional because it violates the Fourth Amendment. Ordinarily, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to show probable cause and obtain a warrant before it can conduct a search. Section 215, however, allows the government to conduct such searches with- ALESSANDRA SOLER
The Patriot Act grants dangerously broad surveillance powers to the federal government.
out showing probable cause and without bothering to get a warrant.
But even if Section 215 is constitutional, the NSA is still taking things way too far. The NSA conducts a domestic call-tracking program wherein it eavesdrops on people’s phone calls as a matter of routine. The NSA claims that this program is targeted, the implication being that you have nothing to worry about if you’re behaving yourself. Not true. The program is not limited to terrorists or those associated with foreign powers. On the contrary, the NSA uses this program to collect “on an ongoing daily basis” the records of every call made in the United States, even those by innocent Americans. And congressional intelligence committees have confirmed that the government has been collecting the phone records of practically all Americans for at least seven years. In doing so, the NSA has developed a database filled with revealing information about every American’s associations and affiliations.
Think about the sweeping breadth of information being collected. Every time a resident of the United States makes a phone call, the NSA knows who he or she called, when the call was placed and how long the conversation lasted. The NSA knows if that resident called a doctor, a pastor, a political party, an addiction support group or a romantic interest. Calling patterns can indicate when we are asleep and when we are awake, our work habits and the number of friends we have. How many people would
have checked its legal ground before asking the combatants to engage before it.
» Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain declined to stop a law substantially increasing campaign-contribution limits in Arizona from going into effect.
The Clean Elections folks had sought an injunction, claiming that the increases violated the Voter Protection Act, which says that what voters enact, the Legislature shall not mess with.
The Voter Protection Act was approved in 1998, the same year voters approved Clean Elections, Arizona’s system of public campaign financing.
The Clean Elections initiative included a reduction in private contribution limits, but did so by reference. Rather than including a figure in the initiative itself, the initiative said that the amounts already set in a different state law were to be reduced by 20 percent.
The Legislature substantially increased the referenced amounts, which will in turn be reduced by the initiative’s 20 percent. So, public finance advocates were stuck arguing that the Legislature was amending something approved by voters even though it didn’t a change a word voters had enacted. Brain didn’t buy it and came up with a novel point on his own. Since Clean Elections was approved at the same election as the Voter Protection Act, the former couldn’t be protected by the latter, since it’s not certain voters wanted that result.
Clean Elections advocates vow to appeal. I suspect they will continue to fail. It’s just hard to argue that something that’s not been changed has nevertheless been legally amended.
» If the new limits stick, it will, over time, restore some of the influence of the business community in Republican primaries. The loss of such influence has been the principal, although unintended, effect of public financing.
But there won’t be a return to the days in which the business community, by controlling access to campaign funds, effectively served as a gatekeeper in GOP primaries.
These days, social conservatives are the dominant force in Republican primaries, and they tend to find their candidates irrespective of money. If the business community is indeed to increase its influence, it will have to play a smarter game than in the past. It can’t just ignore social conservatives.