IPUrbia

It’s not very often that I get an email like this one that hit my inbox today asking me to “write an IPUrbia post vilifying AT&T’s position” on the AT&T/NSA wiretapping cases. What blogger can refuse such a clear call for hard-hitting against a large corporation conspiring with the United States government to undermine the civil liberties of American citizens?

The entire NSA/AT&T wiretapping scandal is ridiculous and any mention of the whole sham is usually enough to change me from a generally mild-mannered pragmatist to a hot-blooded conspiracy nut-job. It’s not that I don’t think that national security is important. The ultimate question at hand is this: what do we gain, security-wise, from making this a matter too secret, apparently, for the court system?

My reasoning is simple: if I was a terrorist, I’d pretty much assume that the United States government was already tapping my phone, my email, and tracking me 24/7. Hundreds of movies made since the 50’s has let us in on this “top-secret” information–the government can monitor the “bad guys”. Anyone who doesn’t think that the government can tap phones and electronic communications is probably too stupid to do much damage to the United States except as a drain on the social welfare safety net.

The big secret, then, can’t be that the government can listen in on terrorists. We know this. Which only leaves one possible secret to be hiding–that the government listens in on “potential” terrorists, namely somewhere around 300 million “potential” terrorists. The only secret is that the government, after getting a fast-track secret warrant program that all but circumvents the courts role in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice process, can’t even be bothered to make even the smallest of token efforts to safeguard American civil liberties.

We were founded as a country that revolted against the abuses of a government against its citizens. We were founded on the principles that some rights are too sacred to be traded for security or safety. We were founded on the fundamental ideal that some ideals were too important to be trusted to governments. Having read thousands of pages of political theory of the founding fathers, I have not ever come across a single statement that supports the need for a government to monitor its citizens. I’ve come across hundreds of admonitions for citizens to “be vigilant” on the “watchtower of democracy”, to watch our government constantly, and to safeguard our freedoms constantly from our very own government.

AT&T conspires with the NSA to spy on the American populace. For those who wonder how much American freedoms can be bought, simply look at the last 5 years of a blatantly pro-AT&T regulatory environment. Given the general obsession with capitalizing absolutely everything possible, it is not surprising that our privacy and liberty can be bought and sold on the open market. What is surprising is how cheap the going rate is.

Those who scoff and claim that the government should, nay, must be trusted might take a look back to the civil rights movement, when “terrorists” such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders were the constant targets of illegal FBI wiretapping, all in the name of national security. Or, look no further than the Patriot Act of the last five years and the repeated abuse of power by the government. Or, look at the total lack of results from over 150,000 “National Security Letters” requesting financial and business information without warrants.

AT&T’s response to the EFF lawsuits and the legal injunctions? Simple: the court system–constitutionally appointed to balance the power of the Executive branch–does not have authority to guard civil liberties of Americans. Further comments were also disheartening–to summarize, AT&T argues that despite government acknowledgement of such programs and leaks of information about secret monitoring rooms in San Francisco, the EFF’s case against AT&T is “all conjecture”. As one citizen wrote in as a comment:
“The court, for instance, relied on its own unfounded and inexpert speculation that content surveillance requires the cooperation of a telecommunications provider.”

I’m sure AT&T had no idea about the secret room built in their San Francisco switch office [adjacent to room 4ESS]. How could you possibly expect a corporation to keep track of unauthorized construction in their own high security building [extreme sarcasm]?

It also, perhaps, may just be pure conjecture on my part, but San Francisco seems a little bit of an odd location for simple “monitoring of international calls”. Last time I checked, San Francisco is not an incredibly prominent overseas peering point. Well, I suppose it still might just be conjecture–after all, the tap wasn’t found in Kansas–yet.

2,973 people died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It’s a damn shame that those 2,973 deaths have been used as an excuse–all in the name of security–to undo the very liberties and freedoms that millions of Americans died protecting. AT&T and the NSA, you have failed America. Shame on you.