Who’s Interested in Ancient History?

I was setting out our trash when Ann Willard came up the street, walking their St. Bernard, Boris.  “How’ya doing, Ann?” I said.  “Have a good holiday?”

She looked a little red-faced, but that was probably the stiff, cold wind gusting up from the river.  Or being a hundred pound woman being dragged by a two hundred pound dog.  “I don’t want to sound like a complainer,” she said, “but we’ve had better.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.  “It’s not Dean, is it?  He hasn’t had a relapse with that ‘acceptance’ thing?”

“No, no,” she said.  “It’s our daughter Jeannie.”

Jeannie is a few years older than Kevin.  Nice girl, friendly, kind of the perky type.  She’s off to college somewhere--should be a sophomore or maybe a junior now.  “Is she okay?” I asked.  “She hasn’t caught that flu that’s going around, has she?”

“Nothing like that,” said Ann, “although I thought she might be coming down sick at first.  She was too quiet.  Serious.  Would go for walks by herself, and look up at the sky.  And she had this... what’s the word I’m looking for?... this quizzical expression on her face.  It looked unnatural on her.  I said to Dean, ‘There’s something different about her, but I can’t put my finger on it.’  And he said, ‘It’s her cellphone.  She’s not using her cellphone.  And she hasn’t been driving; she walks everywhere’.”

“Not using her cellphone?” I said, baffled.

“Oh, you know how it is with these kids, Ace.  Their cellphones are like another bodily organ for them.  They can’t live without it.  You’re sitting in church, praying, and glance up, and half the kids in the congregation are hunched over their cellphones, texting away.  I’ve got to give Dean credit.  He spotted it, and I’d missed it.” 

“A drastic change in behavior like that....  You’re not thinking it’s drugs?” I asked hesitantly.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to think,” she said.  “So when we were cleaning up the kitchen after supper last night, just the two of us, I just came out and asked her about it.”

“What did she have to say, if it’s okay to talk about it?”

“She hemmed and hawed, but I finally got it out of her.  She said that right before she left campus, they’d had a speaker in her political science class.  Some newspaper man talking about government surveillance.”

“Huh,” I said, “what would be disturbing about that?”

“Apparently this guy was really far out.”

“Yeah?  What kinds of things did he have to say?”

  “That’s the funny part.  Mostly he just asked questions.”

She paused, and I wasn’t sure she was going to go on.  Boris was clearly getting restless, and his four feet determined to move on were gaining traction against her two feet trying to stay.

“Questions?  Like what?”

“Well, the first one was ‘How many of you think our government is ideal--fair, honest, open, efficient, trustworthy, with liberty and justice for all--and always will be?  That there isn’t, and never will be, a reason to complain or protest about anything it does or says?’”

I snorted.  “That’s ridiculous!  I love this country, but come on!  No country is perfect.  This isn’t utopia!  There are plenty of things to complain about with our government, and always will be.  We go through spells where we do some downright stupid and scary things.  But that’s true of every other country too.”

“Sure,” she said.  “I think that was his point.  Then he asked them to raise their hands if they’d ever heard about the Palmer Raids, where the U.S. Attorney General organized raids on foreign-born workers, who were beaten, arrested, brutally interrogated, and then deported.  All of that without trials, for nothing more than exercising their right to free speech.  Nobody raised a hand, of course.  I mean, who’s heard of the Palmer Raids?”

“Not me,” I said.  “But then I’ve been kind of tied up the last month or so with the playoffs and the Super Bowl.”

“I googled it.  They took place back in 1919-1920,” she said.  “I believe that predates the NFL by two or three years.”

“Huh,” I said.  “Predated the NFL?  What did they manage to do with themselves?”

“I can’t imagine.  Maybe they had families,” she said--somewhat tartly, I thought.  “But back to this speaker.  The next thing he asked was if they had heard about the FBI’s tapping Martin Luther King’s phones, spying on him, and--when they found out about some sexual escapades--trying to blackmail him into stopping his protests.  Quite a few students raised their hands.”

“I seem to remember hearing about that somewhere,” I said.

  “Then he asked them if they knew about the FBI’s COINTELPRO program to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the US--with the Southern Christian Leadership Council, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Nation of Islam among the targets.  Did they know of the FBI’s role in the murder of Black Panther Party members and the ultimate destruction of the Party?  They’d never heard any of that.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“It’s hard for me to remember everything Jeannie said he asked, but I think the next thing was if they knew about President Nixon’s using the IRS to target political enemies, and CIA people to burgle Democratic headquarters.  But apparently Nixon is as remote as James Madison as far as these kids are concerned.  Only two students raised their hands.”

“You can’t blame the kids,” I said.  “Who’s interested in ancient history?”

“Then he asked them if they knew that the government orchestrated the destruction of the Occupy protests that were spreading across the country back in the winter of 2011-2012.  That it conducted surveillance of protestors, shared information with banks and universities and local police, and provided strategies for dismantling local encampments.  Nobody raised a hand.  They’d all heard of the Occupy Movement, but none of them knew about the coordinated effort to destroy it.”

“What was his point?”

“He didn’t say, but it seems obvious, doesn’t it?”

“Uhh...,” I began, but Boris evidently thought I was growling, and turned toward me, his body stiffening.

Ann ignored him.  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Ace!  He was just showing that governments, definitely including ours, are as fallible as anything else people lay their hands to.  Sooner or later, some leader with access to information about people’s private lives will use that information to go after organizations critical of government policies or supporters of causes the leader doesn’t like.   The government will try to stamp out legitimate protests and to crush opposition.  His questions were meant to show that that kind of thing has already happened here not once but many times.”

I was getting interested.  “This guy must have been a real trip,” I mused.  “What did he say next?”

“The next part was kind of scary for Jeannie.  He asked, ‘How many of you have led blameless, guilt-free lives?  Have never said or done anything you would be ashamed or embarrassed for the world to know?  Have nothing you would mind your parents, your friends, and everybody in this room hearing about you?’”

“Wow!  What kind of question is that to ask?” I said.

“Apparently it made kids in the class kind of nervous too,” said Ann.  “They were all looking sideways at each other.  Jeannie said you could almost see them thinking.  About that fake ID, about cheating on their girlfriend or boyfriend, about plagiarizing on a paper, getting treated for an STD, some shoplifting, bouncing a few checks, spending time on porn sites, lying to a friend or a professor, being sexually assaulted, having an abortion, getting mad and threatening to kill somebody, smoking pot and trying some of the harder stuff, visiting a counselor because you’re depressed or having panic attacks....”

“I get it,” I said.  “Life.”

Ann sighed.  “Exactly.  We like to put a pretty face on it, but underneath the makeup, we all have complexion problems.”

I was really curious now.  “And then?”  

“The next question was similar.  ‘How about your family and friends?  Are they all exemplary in every way?  Nothing in their lives they wouldn’t want in a headline in the morning paper?’”

“And you were thinking Jeannie might have started thinking about Dean and some of his mental health issues?”

“Well, that, but... you know, I’m not perfect either.  And some of Jeannie’s friends have gone through some pretty rough times.”

“I guess we all have,” I admitted.  

“Then he asked people to raise their hands if they already knew that the government has secret backdoor entrances to all databases, which it then searches for information, and that the NSA sifts through records of internet activity to show nearly everything a person does online.  A few raised their hands.”

“Is that some of the material Snowden leaked?” I asked.

“Just a tiny fraction,” said Ann.  “Then he talked about the way our cellphone calls are not only monitored, but the cellphones themselves are used to track our movements, every minute, where we go and who we meet with.  And about new technology being adopted that reads our license plates whenever we’re on the road, showing where we’re going and where we stop.”

“What!?” I said, startled.  “That’s bad stuff!  I mean, if you start to put those things together, and think of all the power information like that gives the government to intimidate and blackmail, and then factor in the temptation to use all that information once you have it....  it makes it a near-certainty that sooner or later the government will use that power to monitor and destroy opposition, it ....”  I was fumbling around, having trouble finishing my sentences.

“It doesn’t look like the freedom we brag about?” said Ann.  “It sounds like 1984, The Sequel?  Like the machinery is being put in place for government control to become almost absolute?”  

“That’s it,” I said.  “But that’s a terrible thing to tell college kids who just want to flirt and go to football games and keggers and get an education on the side.”

“Not to mention the effect on their parents when they go home,” Ann sighed.  At that moment, when she was momentarily off guard, Boris gave a lunge, nearly bowling her over, and I watched as he tore off down the street, Ann hanging on for dear life, screeching futilely for him to stop as he lumbered after our cat.  I wasn’t worried; the cat can take care of itself.

© Tony Russell, 2014

It’s Not News, It’s Propaganda, Part 2

“You said that the F.B.I. cleared Edward Snowden of acting with anyone else or as part of a spy ring.  Why are we even talking about this then?  How can Mike Rogers pretend the F.B.I. report doesn’t exist, go on TV, and accuse Snowden of being a spy for the Russian secret police?”

“When you’re trying to sell a lie,” said Tom, “you don’t acknowledge the truth and apologize.  You don’t shut your mouth and slink away.  You ignore the truth and boldly repeat the lie.  You repeat it over and over, and in this case Snowden’s attackers got TV talk shows to offer them a forum to spew their falsehoods on three major networks on one Sunday.  Tell me, doesn’t that strike you as a bit strange--this massive, one-sided, simultaneous attack on Snowden?” 

“Now that you mention it,” I said, “it does seem weird.  It’s just too great a coincidence to think that three networks all decided independently to feature attacks on Snowden on the same day.  Somebody had to have coordinated it.  Orchestrated it.  To pretend it just happened accidentally is as likely as numerous Japanese planes all just happening to descend on Pearl Harbor at the same time on the same day in 1941.”

Tom nodded agreement.  “I think of it as ‘the sound of one tongue flapping’,” he said.  “The congressional leadership on intelligence, the NSA,  the administration, and the main stream media have formed a chorus, all singing the same melody with the same lyrics, trying to drown out Mr. Snowden’s message.”

“I don’t know if many people have followed all the details, though, Tom.  It’s a lot to keep up with.”  

“I’m not sure people have to, Ace.  Besides looking at the evidence, which we’ve already done, there’s a different method people often use to decide who’s likely to be telling the truth.  It’s not based on a legal model, with evidence and witnesses, but it’s a rough-and-ready method that people have been using for centuries.” 

“You mean torture?” I gasped.

“No, no,” he said, startled.  “I mean just asking yourself what people stand to gain in a situation.  That often makes pretty clear who’s likely to be lying.”

“Ah, I’ve got it now.  Sure.  Shoot,” I said.

  “Not a good choice of words, Ace,” said Tom.  “Several anonymous members of our spy agencies have said they’d like to kill Mr. Snowden.”

“Oh, right.  Sorry,” I said.

“Anyway,” Tom went on, “What did Mr. Snowden gain when he decided to take his knowledge of the NSA’s secret surveillance to the public?”  Again he started ticking off points on his fingers.  “It cost him his well-paying job and his career.  It threw him into exile, separated him from his family and girlfriend, held a strong likelihood of capture and long-term imprisonment, exposed him to personal attacks and slander, and--as I mentioned--drew predictable threats of assassination.”

“That’s a lot to sacrifice,” I said.

“Those are losses--enormous losses,” agreed Tom.  “So what did he gain?  He’s poorer, lonelier, isolated, and under attack.  He knew full well what the consequences would be when he made his decision.  His only gains are intangibles: a clear conscience and the knowledge that he has offered the public a chance to make an informed decision on living under a surveillance state.  He says that if he ends up in a ditch somewhere, it still will have been worth it.”

“When you lay it out that way, he’s somebody you just have to admire,” I said.  “I don’t think I could do what he did.”

“Don’t think badly of yourself,” Tom said kindly.  “Cesar Chavez once said that ‘To be a man is to suffer for others.‘  I don’t think Chavez meant that in a sexist way; I think he meant that shouldering your responsibilities to your family, your community, or your country, even at great personal cost, is the price you must be willing to pay if you want to hold on to your self-respect and your integrity.  I’m sure that, faced with a similar choice, you’d make the right decision.”

I didn’t know what to say for a minute.  I hadn’t expected his last comment.  It may have been the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me--and I wasn’t sure he was right.  “Thanks, Tom,” I managed.  

“You’re welcome, Ace,” he said.  “You know, integrity isn’t easy or cheap.  If it were, there would be a Hallelujah Chorus of whistleblowers in the NSA, and congress would be an honored gallery of respected public servants.  Edward Snowden was in a position where he had a choice to make, but in some respects, everyone he worked with was faced with the same choice.  He could continue to be a faceless part of an enormous secret bureaucracy that is striking at the very heart of our democracy.  Or he could be a man, expose the secrets and lies, and suffer the consequences.”

“Okay,” I said.  “So you've laid out what Snowden lost and gained.  But what about his attackers?”

Tom paused and thought for a moment.  “We can only make guesses as to what Mr. Rogers, Ms. Feinstein, and Mr. McCaul stand to gain,” he said, “but they stand to lose nothing--with the possible exception of self-respect.  They have cast their lot with the powers that be, and there’s safety and security in that.  They’ve received publicity and an additional measure of fame.  Their political fortunes will continue to prosper, since they’ve proven to be reliably on the side of  secrecy, control, and authoritarianism.  At the worst, they will remain well paid, powerful, and ‘respectable’.”  

“So they made out pretty well in the deal,” I said.

He held me with his eyes.  “That’s the world’s way of looking at it, Ace.  There’s another way.  ‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’” 

That’s what makes conversations with Tom so unsettling.  You’re having a conversation at a normal level about some topic, and then suddenly he takes you to a different place entirely.  I didn’t feel corrected exactly.  More like uncomfortably enlarged.

“We can’t read their minds or hearts,” Tom went on.  “We don’t know what their motives were or what pressure was brought to bear on them.  Still, from the outside, it’s hard not to be skeptical.  Perhaps they were attempting to divert the public’s attention from their own collusion in hiding the extent to which the NSA is spying on all of us.  The Constitution expects congress to put a check on attempts by the executive branch to grab dangerous power.  Instead, these leaders have acted as bipartisan enablers for the dismantling of democracy.  It goes against the grain to speak of people that way, but what else is there to do when they’re apologists for the construction of a police state that makes 1984 look like Summerhill?”

“You seem to be describing them not as real leaders or powerful decision makers, but as servants of someone or something else,” I said.

“I guess I am,” said Tom.  “Despite the high offices Mr. Rogers, Ms. Feinstein, and Mr. McCaul hold, I believe it would be a mistake to see them as anything other than pawns in the hands of the national security state.  Mr. Snowden has challenged the nature and the intentions of the security apparatus, so he must be condemned, slandered, discredited, or silenced by any means necessary.  Now, in both a geographic and a spiritual sense,  he's beyond their control, and that must infuriate them.  In a way few of us can claim to be, he is a free man.  He has been willing to risk everything to share that freedom.  I just don’t know if the rest of us are willing to take the risk of joining him.”

“Why’s he doing it, Tom?  What motivates him?”

“That’s a good question, Ace.  Who knows?  It’s hard to discredit him in the usual ways, because his critics can’t pin a label on him and pigeonhole him. I’ve come to think of him as an ‘odd prophet.’  He’s leading a solitary, almost cloistered life, devoid of luxuries and even ordinary things most of us think of as necessities.  He’s living the lifestyle of a monk, but doesn’t seem to be religious.  He’s not preaching fire and brimstone, nor is he a political firebrand, out to destroy capitalism on the one hand or to promote socialism or communism on the other.  He’s not a Democrat or a Republican.” 

“So we’re stuck with thinking of him with negatives?  What he’s not?”

“I don’t think so, Ace.  He’s an honest man and a courageous man.  He seems patriotic; he has been careful not to damage our country.   The best way I can come up with to describe his motivation and faith is that they’re those of a good systems analyst: ‘garbage in, garbage out.’   He approaches democracy as if it’s a kind of computer for making decisions.  Citizens need clean data coming in.  Instead, we were getting bad numbers and lies, and that was something he ultimately couldn’t tolerate.  So he provided us with clean data--the truth about the NSA’s spying--and said now the decision is up to us.” 

He stopped.  “Thanks for listening to all that, Ace,” he said.  “That was almost as good as shoveling snow.”

“You’re welcome,” I told him.  “If you’ll hand me that shovel and hold my dog for a minute, I think I could use a dose of that manual meditation myself.”

© Tony Russell, 2014

It’s Not News, It’s Propaganda, Part 1

I was out walking my dog the other morning, and my neighbor Tom--known locally as “the gentle radical”--was out shoveling the snow from his walk.  He was puffing, and I asked him if he’d like to take a break and give me a turn at the shovel.

“Thanks for the offer, Ace,” he said with a smile, “but I need to do things like this to work off my frustration.  If I couldn’t shovel snow, rake leaves, and tend to my garden, I think the top of my head might periodically blow off.”

The dog had lain down at my feet and wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere, and Tom seemed ready for some friendly conversation.  “What’s challenged your blood pressure this time?” I asked.

“The media,” he said.  “Especially TV at the moment.  The way they handle this Snowden affair is so unprofessional and unjust that they ought to be ashamed to call themselves part of the ‘free press.‘  Present company excepted, of course.  Your sports reporting seems unhindered by any constraints.”

“Ah, thanks, Tom.  I guess.  What about Snowden coverage has you so upset?”

“Most recently, the Sunday talk shows.  Last week they allowed themselves to be used in an attempt to smear Mr. Snowden by alleging that he’s a Russian spy.   That happened on  all three of the old mainstream networks.  NBC’s Meet the Press,  CBS’s Face the Nation, and ABC’s This Week.”

“I don’t get it,” I admitted.  “Why would they do that?”

“It was one colossal diversion,” said Tom, “a desperate attempt to make Snowden the issue and turn attention away from the massive secret spying on all of us that he has exposed.”

“I never watch those Sunday talk shows,” I said.  “What exactly went on?”   

“Mike Rogers, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Intelligence; Michael McCaul, Republican chair of the House Homeland Security Committee; and Diane Feinstein, the  Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, all took a swing at Mr. Snowden.  Mr. Rogers was the one who weighed in most heavily, if you could use that phrase to describe such an empty case.”

“What do you mean, ‘an empty case’?”

  “Well, for starters, there was no evidence offered, mind you.  Nor were there any demands for evidence by the hosts.  Nor was any person with an opposite viewpoint there to respond.  How unfair can you get?  It’s one-sided, and it’s an abdication of the networks’ responsibility to the public.  It’s not news, it’s propaganda.”

The more Tom talked, the redder his face grew.  “Excuse me for a minute,” he said, then turned and began shoveling.  After a couple of minutes he stopped, heaved a sigh, and said, “Where were we?”

“You were just criticizing  the Sunday talk shows.”

“Ah, right.  You know, I don’t blame you for not watching them.  That kind of dishonest political theater can tear your heart out, if you really care about your country.”

“But suppose they’re right and Snowden actually is a Russian spy?” I worried.

“That’s a good question, Ace.  We have a problem here, don’t we.  Clearly, somebody is lying to us ... either Edward Snowden, or all of the powerful figures lined up against him.  Who should we believe?  The honorable thing to do is to give a fair hearing to both sides.  Let’s look at the evidence, shall we?”  And he began to sum up the evidence, ticking off the points on his fingers.

“One, despite revelation after revelation from Mr. Snowden of the scope and nature of NSA spying, no one has ever denied that his revelations are accurate.  In fact, they appear to have been chosen with extreme care to do just what he claims they were intended to do: give the people of the U.S. the information they need to make an informed choice about whether the NSA’s total surveillance is really the kind of society they want to live in.

Two, despite a lot of loose talk about Mr. Snowden’s endangering people’s lives, not a single instance has been produced where that has actually occurred.

Three, Mr. Snowden’s itinerary clearly shows he had no intention of staying in Russia.  He was trapped there when the U.S. invalidated his passport.

Four, he ended up stuck for forty days in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.  As Mr. Snowden joked--accurately, I think--, ‘Spies get treated better than that.’

Five, with the NSA having the surveillance capacity Mr. Snowden has described, they should already have been able to locate any phone calls, e-mails, or other contacts he had with Russian spymasters.  No such evidence has been produced, which is a strong indication that such contacts never took place.

Six, nobody talks about Edward Snowden’s politics.  Do you know why?  Because he’s a libertarian, a free-market advocate, even an opponent of Social Security.  He’s to the right of Ted Cruz!  To think he’d spy for the Russians strains credulity.  Beyond that, he appears to have been a hard-working, honest, model citizen.  Believe me, if he had major skeletons in his closet, the administrations wouldn’t have waited five minutes before they posted them on billboards in Times Square. 

Seven, the F.B.I. has already concluded that Mr. Snowden acted alone, and its conclusion was reported last week in the New York Times.”

“That’s a long list,” I said.  “It’s always hard to prove a negative, but the case against his being a secret operative for a foreign power sounds awfully convincing.  What’s the case on the other side of the argument? “ 

“Well, first, we looked at Mr. Snowden’s track record.  His information has been accurate.  He has been open about what he found and why he felt obliged to expose it.  Now let’s look at the record of those attacking him.  Snowden’s revelations made it clear that the NSA has lied in sworn testimony about the nature and extent of its spying.”

“They lied to Congress?  To the people who are supposed to be representing us?”

“They sure did.  James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, lied under oath to Congress back in March of 2013, when he was asked whether the NSA collected ‘any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans‘ — and Clapper said, ‘No, sir ... not wittingly’.  Then Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, admitted last October that his testimony that NSA surveillance had foiled 54 terrorist plots was bogus. One Republican congressman told Alan Grayson that he doesn’t even attend intelligence briefings anymore because ‘they always lie’.  Grayson says that many congress members believe that the congressional intelligence committees go right along with the NSA, and are more loyal to the ‘intelligence community’ than to the Constitution.  These committee chairs who attacked Snowden are working hand in glove with the NSA they’re supposed to be overseeing.”

“What evidence did these intelligence committee chairs offer on Sunday then?  They must have had some good stuff if they’re so close to the spies.”

“No evidence, but a good amount of innuendo--which makes you think that there isn’t any evidence.  Mr. Rogers implied that, because the U.S. government stopped Mr. Snowden’s flight in transit, resulting in his being stranded in Russia, he must have been spying for the Russians.  Is that logical?”

“I’ll admit that sometimes I’m logically-challenged,  but no, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Mr. Rogers also implied that Mr. Snowden’s having a go-bag ready was proof that he was a spy.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “you lost me there.  What’s a go-bag?” 

“Some people call them ‘bug-out bags,’ or ‘GOOD bags,’ for Get Out Of Dodge’,” explained Tom. “ They’re kits that people keep packed full of the things they would need to get through the next 72 hours if there’s an emergency or disaster.  It would have been pretty standard for anyone in a position like Mr. Snowden’s to have one while working with the CIA and the NSA.  If you arrested everyone who had a go-bag, the CIA and NSA would be half-empty.”

“That’s pretty thin, then,” I said.  “What else?”  

“I’m afraid that’s it.”   

“That’s it?  That’s nuts!” I said.  “If you could convict people on flimsy stuff like that, you could sentence anyone for anything.  I’ve got a scope-mounted Remington 700 for deer hunting.  Does that mean somebody could accuse me of planning to assassinate the President?”

“Very good, Ace,” he said, with a slight look of surprise.  “That’s precisely the kind of thinking I was talking about.”  

© Tony Russell, 2014

Big Brother on Steroids

Uncle Jimmy was in for the holidays, and I pulled him aside after dinner last night.  I knew he was going to leave early Monday morning to drive back up to his job at the Pentagon, and there was something I wanted to ask him about.

“Jimmy,” I said, “I saw a headline on Yahoo!  What’s the deal with Bernie Sanders asking the NSA if it spies on Congress?  That’s crazy talk, isn’t it?  Why would he even think such a thing?”

Jimmy looked surprised.  “The NSA's spying on people in Congress was the first thing I thought about when Snowden’s revelations started popping up,” he said.  “Any intelligence service, sooner or later, targets the people who are supposed to oversee it.  Sooner, usually.  That’s where their money comes from, and where the power lies.  When news came out that the NSA spies on the UN, and then that it spies on the leaders of our allies, it was obvious these guys are operating in a free fire zone.”

That definitely wasn’t what I wanted to hear.  “What I don’t understand, Jimmy, is that Sanders asked a ‘yes or no’ question,  but the NSA didn’t give him a ‘yes’ or ‘no‘ answer.  Sanders asked, ‘Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?‘   And what the NSA wrote back was, ‘Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons’.”  

Jimmy laughed.  “Oh, Sanders got his answer all right.  ‘The same privacy protections as all US persons’ means Congress members don’t have any privacy protections.  None.  Zero.  The message the NSA is sending loud and clear is ‘YES, we spy on Congress and other elected officials--and people in the administration too.  You didn’t think you were exempt from the spying that you’re approving for everybody else, did you?‘  The NSA did everything but give Congress the finger with that answer.  It makes you scratch your head.  Did those people in Congress really think that the great fishnet in the sky had a catch-and-release program for them because they’re big fish?”

“Wait a minute,” I said.  “What do you mean when you say that having the same protections as all US persons means they don’t have any protections?”

He gave me a look of disbelief.  I get that a lot.  “Lord have mercy, boy, don’t you read your own newspaper?  Or listen to the news on NPR?  Or get news somewhere?”

“Mostly the sports page,” I admitted.  “Actually, only the sports page.  Well, and the comic strips.  And sometimes my horoscope.”

He groaned.  I get that a lot too.  “An informed citizenry is the cornerstone of democracy,” he muttered.  “Okay, Ace, here’s what we know at this point.  Edward Snowden said these NSA programs ‘put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever.’  The NSA collects and stores data on every phone call made in the United States.  They also track and store the information on hundreds of millions of cellphone users on a minute-to-minute basis around the world--including our exact locations at each moment, where we’re going, who we meet, and where we meet.”

“They’re tracking me everywhere through my cellphone?!” I asked incredulously.

“Yep.  The NSA also broke into the global data centers of Yahoo! and Google, which enables them to collect information at will about hundreds of millions of people.  They search our e-mails, our online chats, and our browser histories. They also bribed the company that provides encryption programs for computer security to create a ‘back door’ enabling them to enter and spy on supposedly secure data and communications.”

I was stunned.  “What does all that mean?” I asked, still trying to take it all in.

“Basically it means none of us have any privacy when we use any electronic communication device, or when information about us goes into any electronic data system.” 

My mind started racing over things I’d looked at or written online.  Whoa!  “That’s scary,” I said.

“It sure is,” Jimmy said.  “There’s a saying that ‘information is power.’  Nobody in the world has ever had anything even close to as much information as the NSA.  If that saying is correct, the NSA is now the most powerful institution in the history of the planet.”

“Another saying is that ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’,” I threw in.

“That too,” Jimmy agreed.

“But now that Congress members know their lives are under a microscope just like the rest of us, they’ll do something about it, won’t they?”

“Well,” said Jimmy, “from the NSA’s standpoint, that’s the beauty of it.  Congresspeople are just as human as the rest of us, with the same weaknesses and vices--maybe even more, because the sheer expense of running for office, along with the lure of the political spotlight, guarantees that Congress will have more than its share of the ambitious, the vain, and the power-hungry.”

“So?”

“So while members of Congress are thinking about the NSA’s response, they’ll also start thinking about that stretch they spent in rehab.  About their confessions to their AA sponsors, which they thought were private.  About the affair they’re having with a staffer, and the e-mails they’ve sent each other and the telephone calls between them--all part of their NSA record.  About the bribe they took for a vote.  About the information on their medical record--now converted into an electronic health record which the NSA can break into.  About lies they’ve told.  About their gambling habit.  No need to go on; you get the idea.”

“It doesn’t take much of a scandal or hint of weakness to derail a political career,” I mused.

“No, we definitely operate with a strange standard,” said Jimmy.  “‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ according to the Good Book.    But that doesn’t help somebody at the ballot box.  And if the congressperson feels fairly secure about his or her own life--which sure isn’t guaranteed--, what about their spouse, their kids, their brothers and sisters?  When you get right down to it, we’re all vulnerable.  And now congresspeople are on notice.  If you don’t vote right,  if you try to stop the NSA or even make an effort to curtail its power, they can hurt you.  Really hurt you.  Your life is an open book to them, and they wouldn’t hesitate to make a best-seller out of it.”

“What’s gonna happen then?  Can the NSA keep on getting away with all this?  It’s like Big Brother on steroids!”

Jimmy frowned.  “It doesn’t look good,” he said.  “James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, lied under oath back in March of 2013, when Ron Wyden asked him if the NSA collected any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.  ‘No sir... not wittingly,’ said Clapper.  Just three months later, in June, NSA director Keith Alexander lied to Congress when he claimed that 54 terrorist plots had been thwarted through use of mass phone surveillance.  Eventually Alexander admitted that the number 54 was entirely fictitious, that maybe one or two plots have been affected in some way.  At a bare minimum, both should have been fired immediately and the NSA reined in.  Both could and probably should have been charged with perjury and contempt of Congress.  But neither paid the slightest price for lying.  Which probably gives you a pretty good indication of the leverage they have over Congress.”

“I don’t get it, Jimmy,” I said.  “What you’re describing sounds more like a police state than the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“Those are your words, not mine,” he said.  “I’d be careful not to use them in an e-mail or on a telephone.”

© Tony Russell, 2014

Review: The Terminal (2013)

This summer’s blockbuster is a remake of Steven Spielberg’s 2004 romantic comedy The Terminal.  The main figure in the earlier film, Viktor--played somewhat awkwardly by Tom Hanks, affecting a nondescript all-purpose Eastern European accent--is trying to immigrate to New York.  He becomes stranded in Kennedy Airport, however, when his home country suddenly undergoes a violent coup and no longer officially exists.  

In this 2013 remake, director Glenn Greenwald reverses the East-West aspects of the earlier plot and blends the Spielberg film’s storyline with elements of the 1998 Will Smith/Gene Hackman  action flick Enemy of the State.  Result: instead of a comedy we now have an international thriller.  Edward Snowden plays a former U.S. spy agency contractor who is stranded in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after he reveals that an invisible coup has occurred in the United States, and the US government is no longer what its citizens think it is.

The thread connecting the two films is that both central figures--Viktor and Edward--are so honest, straightforward, and devoid of hidden motives that their simplest words and acts make the officials trying to deal with them look bad by contrast.  When the officials continue to operate as rule-bound, duplicitous, and sometimes vindictive servants of the institution, we become appalled by both the bureaucracies they serve and their own limited moral imaginations.

Snowden, depicted as a computer systems expert employed first by the CIA and then by giant private contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, is moved by conscience and love of country to reveal to the public “that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”  Fearing reprisals from the administration and its security apparatus--correctly, as it turns out--, Snowden travels abroad before his revelations are released.  He first takes refuge in Hong Kong, where he believes (mistakenly) he will be granted asylum.  There he issues a series of disclosures, each more shocking than the one before, and becomes the target of an international manhunt.

The manhunt is standard thriller material, with a range of international locations reminiscent of the Bourne series.  This is supplemented by the usual obligatory “romance.”  

Spielberg’s 2004 film used a contrived love interest between Viktor (Tom Hanks) and Amelia (a stewardess who passes periodically through Kennedy, played by the entrancing Catherine Zeta-Jones).  This 2013 version of the boy-girl angle is even more contrived.  Snowden is supplied with an off-screen girlfriend, who presumably remains in Hawaii and never figures in the plot.  

The girlfriend’s father--Jonathan Mills, in a brief but effective appearance--offers his observation, however, that Snowden “ always had very strong convictions of right and wrong.”  His comment is artfully balanced with the following scene, in which an irate neighbor says, “He’s lucky someone didn’t shoot him.”

In a misguided plot twist, the film introduces a second romance angle which quickly fizzles out, and serves only to get the mini-talented Anna Chapman, a former Russian spy, her moment on screen and in the tabloids.  Chapman, host of the weekly Russian TV show Secrets of the World, Twitters “Snowden, will you marry me?” and then poses coyly while flashbulbs pop.  They never meet.

Although the new Terminal has drawn widespread media attention, the film ultimately founders on its basic premises, which are so preposterous as to undermine the “willing suspension of disbelief” necessary for a film to touch us emotionally.

We are asked to believe that, unknown to the American people, the US’s security apparatus has constructed over the previous seven years a vast, illegal, all-encompassing electronic eavesdropping system which conducts surveillance of every citizen in the country, as well as of global communications.  

We are furthermore asked to believe that, instead of responding to Snowden’s revelations with outrage and huge demonstrations, U.S. citizens remain as passive as stunned beef cattle dangling from a moving rack while it carries them toward their slaughter. The film asks us to believe that half of the people in the country are comfortable with the idea that every snip of their electronic communication is monitored, recorded, and stored by government employees and private contractors.  

We are also asked to believe that mainstream media, instead of praising Snowden’s courage, his willingness to sacrifice his career, and his scrupulous care to avoid endangering the security of individuals and the country, actually collaborate with the government in portraying him as a coward and a traitor.

We are asked to believe that Congressional leaders rise to defend the government’s giant criminal conspiracy instead of condemning it.  Here Nancy Pelosi needs to be singled out for her outstanding performance.  Playing herself in a cameo role, complete with pearls, she defends the secret mass surveillance as entirely legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.  Appearing on a staged version of Meet the Press, she attacks Snowden and delivers a chilling portrayal of a hard-line party apparatchik endorsing governmental spying on its own citizens. 

Finally, we are asked to believe that sovereign nation after sovereign nation abandons any sense of international law or moral responsibility and bows to threats by the U.S., refusing Snowden asylum.  In one particularly far-fetched scene, the governments of France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain all collude with the U.S. to force a plane carrying the president of Bolivia (played by Evo Morales) to land in Austria, based on nothing more than a rumor Snowden is aboard.  There the plane is stormed and searched by Austrian police--only to find, in a comic denouement, that after all the hoopla, Snowden isn’t on the aircraft.

Snowden’s performance is a revelation.  The unknown, in his first feature role, is utterly convincing as a thoughtful thirty-something with a strong sense of patriotism and an even stronger sense of right and wrong.  Instead of a thriller with the requisite sexpot thrown in for romance, he manages to turn the film into a love story--a tale of genuine love for his country's ideals and for freedom.  There is talk of an Oscar, and he has already been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Producers and directors are besieging him with additional projects, but those remain on hold so long as the threat of a lifetime prison sentence or execution hangs over his head.

I won’t cheat people who haven’t yet seen the film by revealing its stunning conclusion; be advised that it is Hollywood to the end.  The real world could never match this.

© Tony Russell, 2013

The Rest of the World Barely Exists

Vienna, July 2 ~

U.S. President Barack Obama’s plane, headed home after his visit to Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, was forced to land in Austria today when French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese officials refused to let Air Force One land and refuel as needed for its transAtlantic flight.  Once the plane touched down, it was boarded and searched by Austrian officials before being permitted to refuel and continue on its way.  

It is widely accepted that the forced grounding and search were orchestrated by the Bolivian government, which is said to have received a tip that its ex-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was aboard the flight.  Sánchez de Lozada, as it turned out, was not aboard Air Force One.

Sánchez de Lozada--a U.S.-backed ruler who faces charges at home for ordering the indiscriminate killing of dozens of peaceful protestors in cold blood--has been living in asylum in the U.S. since he was driven from office in 2003.  The U.S.’s willingness to harbor an alleged mass murderer for the past decade is no surprise, given that he received advice in his 2002 campaign from Democratic strategists James Carville,  Stan Greenberg, and Bob Shrum, and was known, during his tenure as president, as "Washington's most stalwart ally in South America." 

The Obama administration just last year refused Bolivia’s request for Sánchez de Lozada to be extradited so that he might stand trial for genocide. 

U.S. officials reacted with fury to the downing, boarding, and search of Air Force One.  President Obama, who still appeared somewhat shaken when he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, adopted the high moral tone he normally employs in public, describing the incident as “shocking,” “intolerable,” “personally offensive to me as the leader of a free and sovereign nation,” “an insult to the people of our great country,” and “an unacceptable violation of standards of common decency as well as international law.”  

“Is this how they treat one of their sister-countries in the Americas?” Mr. Obama asked rhetorically.  “We try to be ‘good neighbors’ to our friends in the South, but such criminal behavior makes a nation a pariah in the global community.”

Secretary of State John Kerry condemned “the cowardly behavior of those countries who bowed to Sucre’s will in carrying out this outrage.”   The U.S. has demanded a formal apology from Bolivia and from each of the nations complicit in forcing Air Force One down.

Following instructions from the president, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel immediately put U.S. forces in the region on “High Alert,” and ordered a list of bombing targets be drawn up for the cities of Santa Cruz, El Alto, La Paz, and Cochabamba.  

Major newspapers and TV networks in the U.S. have taken up the drumbeat for a military response, calling the incident “incendiary” and “an act of aggression tantamount to an act of war.”   

The average person on the street echoed such sentiments.  “Can you believe they’d do something so high-handed?“ asked Stephie Barone, a receptionist with an international mining firm headquartered in Colorado.  “The lack of respect for other nations?  Talk about a double standard!  How would they feel if the shoe were on the other foot?”

“Bolivians think they can get away with anything,” said Don Bling, an over-the-road truck driver from Chicago.  “The normal rules don’t apply to them.  They’re a rogue state.  It’s time they looked at their behavior through other people’s eyes for a change.”

“I don’t blame ordinary Bolivians,” said Angela D’Alessandro, a beautician in the Bronx.  “They live in a media bubble.  All they know is Bolivia.  As far as they’re aware, the rest of the world barely exists.”

© Tony Russell, 2013