Earlier this year, we wrote about the
psychological games
that surveillance state defenders play -- both on themselves and the
public -- to continually ratchet up programs that show no evidence of
working. In it, we pointed to a great post by the ACLU's Kade Crockford,
highlighting a rare case where an FBI official
was forthright about what's really going on:
If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for
an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that ‘We
won the war on terror and everything’s great,’ cuz the first thing
that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half. You know,
it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear
Alive.’ Keep it alive.
Keep fear alive. Keep it alive. And, apparently, one great way to do that is to basically get the NY Times to run
pure government propaganda in the form of simply repeating anonymous fearmongering from administration officials who set up a call for this exact purpose:
“What you’re doing, essentially, is you’re playing national security
Russian roulette,” one senior administration official said of allowing
the powers to lapse. That prospect appears increasingly likely with the
measure, the USA Freedom Act, stalled and lawmakers in their home states
and districts during a congressional recess.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” another senior member of the administration
said at a briefing organized by the White House, where three officials
spoke with reporters about the consequences of inaction by Congress. “We
have not had to confront addressing the terrorist threat without these
authorities, and it’s going to be fraught with unnecessary risk.”
First, note the anonymity, even though this isn't a leak or a reporter
sniffing out a story and needing to protect sources. This is a "briefing
organized by the White House" where they play stupid games in demanding
anonymity for the sole purpose of avoiding accountability. Second, note
the blatant fearmongering without any specifics. It's pure "keep fear
alive" in action -- aided along by a stenographer at the NY Times.
All the propaganda that's fit to print.
As the Intercept rightly notes, this piece was published
without even the slightest critical look into the statements by those officials:
Worst of all, it’s all published uncritically. There’s not a syllable
challenging or questioning any of these dire warnings. No Patriot Act
opponent is heard from. None of the multiple facts exposing these scare tactics as manipulative and false are referenced.
It’s just government propaganda masquerading as a news article, where
anonymous officials warn the country that they will die if the Patriot
Act isn’t renewed immediately, while decreeing that Congressional
critics of the law will have blood on their hands due to their refusal
to obey. In other words, it’s a perfect museum exhibit for how
government officials in both parties
and American media outlets have collaborated for 15 years to enact one
radical measure after the next and destroy any chance for rational
discourse about it.
Once again, two separate government review boards, as well as judges who
have looked over the program and Senators who have been briefed on the
full extent of the program in question, have all said that the bulk
metadata collection program
has not proven useful in stopping terrorist attacks. At all.
And, of course, blatant fearmongering without comparing the costs and
(lack of) benefits is completely useless. Again, it could be taken to
any extreme. Would putting real-time cameras hovering over every living
human being 24/7 allow the government to find out who was plotting a
terrorist attack? In theory, yes. But everyone would consider it a gross
violation of privacy. Just because a tool
might be useful
doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. So, here we have a case of
a "tool" that is both a clear violation of our civil liberties
and one that hasn't even been found to be useful.
Yet why is the NY Times -- the so-called "paper of record" -- repeating
blindly government propaganda about how important it is to keep the
program alive? Keep fear alive, NY Times. Keep it alive.
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