Blog Post 4: Domestic Surveillance and Fake Reform

When it comes to surveillance programs, it is my opinion that an interesting paradox has effectively taken place: one of “fake reform”, as Greenwald put it. Public outcries over domestic surveillance programs has not led to more transparency, accountability, democratic debate and subsequent policy changes but instead has resulted in these programs becoming even more obscured from the public view. To assuage public fears about its infringement on civil liberties, the government passed laws and adopted measures which were designed to do just that-stop the questions, and not fix the real problems at hand. In fact, these laws, like the 2008 FISA, have allowed the NSA to retain its spying abilities and have even served to increase its power.

The first instance which illustrates this point well is the debacle described by Harris concerning John Poindexter and his program, Total Information Awareness, or TIA. It appears to me, at least from the way that he was portrayed in Harris’ book, that Poindexter developed TIA out of a true desire to protect American citizens by tracking down terrorist networks. He had good intentions, but the program quickly grew beyond his scope of control. In 2002, the New York Times reporter Safire called the system “the perfect storm for civil liberties in America” (230), without actually taking the time to accurately understand and explain the full picture behind Poindexter’s mission. The media machine, as we know, thrives off of sensationalism, scandal, and emotion. Understandably, the public was incensed, and it did not matter that some facts were erroneous or that Safire “mischaracterized Poindexter’s intentions” (231). Instead of inviting public debate about the issue, or instituting some type of judicial review, government officials denied involvement and sought to divert attention from themselves by bringing up  Poindexter’s past.   

Poindexter was grilled by Congressmen and staffers, and the Iran-Contra affair was stirred up once again. Poindexter, according to Harris, “emerged as a caricature” (234), and private details about his life were published and mocked. Somewhere along the way, in their search for knowledge, the developers’ pure intentions became corrupted and convoluted. Harris writes that Poindexter had tried to initiate a debate about privacy controls and attempted to explain that TIA “would never be used to label someone a terrorist. Human analysts, law enforcement officials, and judges would have to make that call. TIA was just a tool” (237), but this never took hold. Not to be said that Poindexter was absolutely blameless, but he did become a scapegoat, a “lightening rod for Congress and the growing frustrations with the Bush administration” (236). In the end, the government officials and politicians involved seemed intent upon the task of stopping the public outcry, but not actually fixing the issue which caused it in the first place. Ultimately, the result was that TIA was re-named, re-located, and “buried deep within the massive Defense Department spending bill for the coming year, cobbled together by the powerful senators and staffers”(247).   The heart of TIA remained the same, and now it would grow even more powerful under the patronage of the NSA, which, in hindsight, seemed to have been the plan all along. Public outcry had brought about the opposite of the intended result: “an underground river of undisclosed billions flowing directly into spy agencies. It would carry the program formerly known as TIA. With a pair of obscure yet legally elegant sentences, Poindexter’s vision was given a second chance” (247).

Greenwald writes that the government has tried to calm fears by claiming that it does not spy on American citizens, or if it has, it was inadvertent and a mistake. Despite denials by the president and other officials, a closer look at the 2008 FISA law reveals that it essentially allows for a surveillance program with very little constraints on who it could actually spy on and how it could collect this information. Moreover, the FISA Court, which in theory was supposed to process and review requests for surveillance from the NSA,  was created not “as a genuine check on the government’s power but as a cosmetic measure, providing just the appearance of reform to placate public anger over surveillance abuses revealed in the 1970s” (128). Thus, the court, while helping to maintain the veneer of legitimacy, has approved over “twenty thousand requests” (128), and “has rejected just eleven government applications” (128). There is something very troubling about these developments: when instead of bringing about increased transparency, accountability, and a more equal balance of power, the government has become to resemble a one way street by shutting down any meaningful discourse and replacing it with the illusion of reform and democracy.