Deep Currents

According to at least one reporter, Obama might be thinking of training a spy agency’s sights on the homeland. Worried about terrorists slipping past slow-moving law enforcement officers whose hands are tied by the need to have probable cause? Concerned that the public nature of trials would expose critical secrets about what we know that would then make it even hard to catch other terrorists in the future? Such an agency would be modeled after Britain’s MI5, which is free to keep tabs on anyone and everyone it considers a potential threat. That would raise hackles on the right and the left, I think, especially among the civil-libertarians who have been worried since 9/11 that the government would use terrorism as a justification for grinding down the right to privacy. To date all we’ve seen is a limited degree of wiretapping. Obama has spoken out against domestic wiretapping in the past, but he’s also been very clear that he wants to play hardball against terrorism.

One key question here is the extent to which you credit the threat from terrorism as a serious one today. I’ve long wondered whether there’s a great deal to be concerned about, considering that al Qaeda hasn’t been building up to any greater strength and we’ve seen no further spectacular attacks on Western targets.

Another key question would be whether you worry about what this and future administrations would do with expanded surveillance powers, since they could very easily be used to quietly suppress dissent against the current leadership, especially dissent radical enough to be convincingly framed as a “threat” to a frightened population. I see that as a deeply conservative force that would corrode our government’s inclination to stay accountable to voters. 

Written: November 24th, 2008