National Security or Invasion of Privacy?

General Michael Hayden, an employee of both Presidents Bush and Obama, says that the National Security Agency (NSA) practice of dragnetting metadata from all cell phone calls, foreign and domestic, by all people, both innocent and criminal, is not being abused and has very positive counterterrorism results.  If so, then the program would be OK?  Being "OK" with this would require me to have implicit trust that no one in the government would ever use collected information inappropriately.  Look where that got me with the IRS.

We should not create government programs with the expectation that they will run well; rather, we should create only those programs impossible to abuse.  Where it is impossible to guarantee correct use of a program or to prevent a program from being used against a regime's political enemies, the program should not be conceived, and if conceived, it should be ended.

When we reach the point that our government, or any other agency for that matter, has implied trust, then we have created a system whereby we may surrender our liberty in the blink of an eye.  Systems designed to crush bad people by tracking everyone's data can easily be shifted in favor of politics simply by redefining the word "BAD".  All of a sudden, a particular faction or party may be labeled "subversive" by the party in power, and the media can be told as much using manufactured press releases.  How many average people are capable of knowing the difference between false reports and real reports filed to news agencies?  How will the average person know that the FBI has arrested political enemies, not terrorists, when the government can generate its own stories under the veil of "national security"?  Can one be so blind as to think it can never happen?

Centralized power is dangerous, and the Founding Fathers sought to decentralize federal powers in favor of states' rights.  We ought to consider divesting the federal government of much of its authority in favor of states and then require that our law enforcement agencies do their jobs the old fashioned way: feet on the ground and human intelligence.  Getting rid of old fashioned police work in favor of dragnets of data does real damage to privacy and keeps on record all history of everyone regardless of expectations of privacy or real suspicions of criminal activity.

When we want to use technology to comb the activities of everyone in hopes that we find the criminal activities of someone, then we fail to see the point of our protective, law enforcement systems.  Their job is to find bad guys by looking at their activities where they expect to find them.  Allowing them access to our records allows them to be the epitome of LAZINESS.  Do not be fooled or lulled into easy complacency.  The government that you trust so much can so easily crush you, and from that, you will not so easily recover.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/hayden-surveillance/2013/06/09/id/508850?s=al&promo_code=13C53-1