Watergate Wouldn't Have Happened if the NSA Had Tools They Do Now...

From a local blog, ARLnow:

"Monday Properties plans to tear down buildings at 1401 Wilson Blvd and 1400 Key Blvd in the Rosslyn, VA neighborhood, to make way for new mixed use development.”

"The parking garage below the buildings will be a casualty of the eventual redevelopment. Forty years ago, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward met a source dubbed 'Deep Throat' — later revealed to be FBI official Mark Felt — in the garage, which was chosen because it was considered an 'anonymous secure location.' The information Felt passed on to Woodward helped expose the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. A sign outside the garage marks the location. Monday Properties says it expects the marker to stay even after the garage is removed."

The garage's location and Deep Throat's identity were secrets for 30 years until 2005 when Woodward wrote The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat.

Imagine if the NSA had the tools then that they have today. The scandal never would have been uncovered. Nixon would have remained in office--and would be hailed as one of the greatest Presidents of all time--even though he practiced “every dirty trick in the book.” Woodward would have been prosecuted for espionage and the Washington Post would have lost press access to the White House conferences and executive-approved leaks/sources.

If our NSA/CIA/FBI could do then what they do now there wouldn't even be a Watergate story because surely the reporter would have been tagged by his cellphone, his license plate, or surveillance cameras.  The source would have been thrown in prison for leaking info to the press under some provision of the "Patriot Act" or various Espionage Acts.  The garage would have been stamped "TOP SECRET" and sealed off decades ago.

One of the most constitutionally important events in US history simply never would have happened.

Our current NSA/CIA/FBI systems are every authoritarian's dream--absolute power and control over every form of global digital communication. It is all at any President's disposal--every minute slice of it that he theoretically can, and therefore eventually will—use to muffle or distort the speech of any citizen or reporter he chooses.  

It is not a question of if, but when, if not already. Remember Project SHAMROCK that illegally obtained and read copies of many Americans' telegrams until exposed by congressional investigators in the mid-1970s or the FAMILY JEWELS REPORT revealing, with the full knowledge of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, that the CIA in 1963 illegally eavesdropped on two unnamed Washington reporters who had been publishing leaks of classified information? 

The scary part is that now it's all legal...

Why Snowden and Those Like Him are Heros, Not Traitors...

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual.  Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities, freedom or democracy." -- Ayn Rand

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.  Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation/poem, "First They Came for the Jews…"

The quotation below stems from Niemöller's lectures during the early postwar period. Different versions exist and refer to diverse groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists, Communists or others because Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings.

Nonetheless, his point was that Germans--in particular, church leaders--were complicit by their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution and murder of millions of people.

It is happening again.  Perhaps, it never stopped.

"First They Came for the Jews"

By Pastor Niemoller

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

 

"v. 2013"

By Alara Rogers, www.alara.net

First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer,
so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the pornographers.
But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway,
so I didn't speak up

Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi,
so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the encryption users.
But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway,
so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me because I said in an email that it seemed regular people lost a lot of privacy. 

They said it was for national safety and security...

But by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Snowden: Privacy, Whistle-blower, Treason? That is the Question

We have strict laws whereby no one can open a letter sent via the US Postal Service without violating the sacredness of the privacy protected within that envelop. We misplaced our trust in extrapolating that the privacy we have had traditionally using such communications would happen when we used newer communication mechanisms. But somehow that same notion of privacy does not exist if you talk on the phone, use a credit card, send an email or work on a computer.

In part, it happened because, when the USA "declares war" on something (including drugs, terrorism, people, etc.) it is not just a euphemism.  It means the Constitution doesn't have to be followed anymore and there are new rules about privacy--i.e., none. We just didn't understand those were the new rules because drugs and terrorism stuff are crimes, not wars.

Mr. Snowden took us out of the naive place we settled into when thinking technology was only a friend or that it helped make our lives easier. He reminded us that our lives are not private and that we can be personally invaded in any way, at any time, by anyone (government or private sector) who wants to invade them. Even having our guns won't help protect us.

It is such an important concept to debate and fight over and preserve because without it we could not have endless choice for ourselves. But the real value of privacy, of course, depends on what you do with it provided that mere self-indulgence is not guiding our lives.

This is the paradox: The notion of privacy (and the Freedom that is the basis of it) changes from being for the pursuit of individual happiness to leading to enhanced expressions of creativity, original thought, increased productivity and an overall high quality of life.