By Pat Caddell
The sordid revelations from the Obama administration are coming at a
pace that can only be described as, well, fast and furious. So let’s lay
down some markers here, as a sort of road map for the months and years
ahead:
First, if the PRISM program and all the rest of the
government’s surveillance programs were so good and necessary, then why
didn’t the feds catch the Tsarnaev brothers, who earlier this year blew
up the Boston Marathon? Or Major Hassan, the 2009 Fort Hood
mass-murderer? Or the “underwear bomber,” also from 2009, who nearly
succeeded in blowing up the passenger jet flying into Detroit?
Second, if and when everything is revealed about PRISM and
all the rest, it’s likely that we will learn of important and
inculpating connections between the National Security Agency (NSA), on
the one hand, and many civilian agencies, on the other.
I am not just referring to Eric Holder’s Justice Department; I am
also referring to the gleefully gushing leakers and win-at-any-cost
politicos in the White House. And oh yes, let’s not forget the Obama
administration’s partisan allies at the IRS, as well as the Obamacare
overseers at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Moreover, since we know that the IRS was eagerly willing to share secret tax information with favored private groups,
we shouldn’t be surprised, in the end, to learn that NSA/PRISM material
ended up in the hands of Obama friends and allies outside of the
government.
Third, we now know that Silicon Valley, and the
telecommunications industry, are the key to the Obama strategy for total
information awareness. In fact, the internet companies, and the phone
companies, were the spearpoint for PRISM. No, wait, that’s not the
right image. Let’s try this: These communications companies put
peepholes into all of our private lives, through which Uncle Sam could
sneak a peek. Every e-mail, every phone call, every text-message--the
government knows about them all.
It’s now evident that all these wonderful digital services--many of
them, such as Google’s Gmail, given away for free--were, in fact, a kind
of Trojan Horse. That is, on the outside, it all seemed like a good
deal--but then the real truth comes tumbling out, and it’s too late.
Some might recall the rueful lesson of the Trojan War: “Beware of Greeks
bearing gifts.” The rueful lesson of our own time: “Beware of geeks
bearing gifts.'
Yes, Big Brother walks among us now, peeking and snooping into
everything. And we, innocently and unwittingly, invited Big Brother into
our midst.
Fourth, it’s not an accident that these Silicon Valley
companies are supporters of Barack Obama. The greatest among these Obama
supporters is Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of the largest of these
companies, Google. Google gained a lot of traction--the company is now
worth nearly $300 billion, and Schmidt owns a good chunk of that--on the
slogan, “Don’t be evil.” But now we know better. Indeed, we are
reminded of another old piece of wisdom: Be extra careful around the man
who protests his virtue too much. And beware the company, too.
Google and all the rest of the Silicon Valleyites say they didn’t
know about what was happening, and if you don’t believe that, well, they
will then tell you that they didn’t provide “direct access.” Oh, okay,
not “direct access”--just full access. And what did the companies get
in return for this cooperation with the government? A pat on the head?
Or something more? Did any of these companies make any serious attempt
to put any sort of limits on what was being snooped, and how it was
being utilized?
Let’s remember: All these companies had a lot of leverage, because
any one of them had the power to make the PRISM operation, at least some
of it, public. But they all chose not to; they all chose to be part of
the effort. How come? Patriotism? Or something else?
Fifth, Eric Schmidt, in particular, seems on his way to
becoming a major Democratic powerbroker, bringing Silicon Valley
smarts--and who knows what else--into the realm of partisan campaigning.
Schmidt is so into this president that he snapped up the 2012 Obama
campaign’s data analytics team--hired the whole Chicago group--and has
now launched them in a new company.
The company, Civis Analytics, will work on various for-profit and
non-profit projects, including helping the Obama administration dragoon
young people into Obamacare. And oh yes, Civis will also work on
political campaigns--but only for Democrats.
So we might ask: Is Schmidt really doing the right thing for the
employees and shareholders of Google? To say nothing of all those
Google users? Is it really in keeping with Schmidt’s fiduciary duty to
his company to get so extended into the policy and politics of the Obama
administration? Are Schmidt’s actions truly helping the long-term
growth and well-being of Google? Not only are its American customers
justifiably freaked out, but how ‘bout customers worldwide? If you were
a citizen of another country, would you really want to keep using
Google if you know that American intelligence types--and maybe American
political operatives--were perusing your private life?
Sixth, young Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old who leaked the PRISM information, is sort of a Zelig figure--if you remember your Woody Allen movies--for
our own time. That is, the naive figure who ends up in the middle of
great events, without fully understanding what is happening all around
him. As a teenager in 2003, at the height of the patriotic feeling of
the War on Terror in 2003, Snowden joined the US Army. He was
discharged after breaking both of his legs in a training accident, and
then, as he made his way up the ladder in the national security
apparatus, he seems to have veered between sort of liking Obama and
actually supporting libertarian candidates.
In other words, Snowden seems to have been pro-war when just about
everyone was pro-war, and he became part of the national security sector
when it was a boom industry. More recently, he believed that Obama
would bring about positive hope and change, even as he himself became
more and more skeptical of government. Then, of course, came his
profound disillusion, and the PRISM leak.
More biographical information on Snowden will come pouring out, but
it surely seems, as of now, that Snowden was riding on the same
political rollercoaster as many millions of American. First, trust in
George W. Bush, then trust in the system, then trust in Obama--and now,
trust in nobody and nothing in Washington.
Seventh, as far as the American people are concerned, this
domestic spying is a big deal. Yet revealingly, to the political
class--that is, our leaders in Washington DC--it’s not such a big deal.
And there we see the central cleft in our politics today: the widening
gap between the government and the governed.
According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, the American people oppose the US government’s secret collection of phone records by a whopping 59:26 margin.
People know, in their bones, that unaccountable government is bad
government; as Patrick Henry said more than two centuries ago, “The
liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the
transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” So when Obama
said, on Friday, “I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for
our democracy,” we might ask right back: Mr. President, if you welcome
this debate so much, why didn’t you begin the debate yourself? Why did
you wait until PRISM was leaked?
The reason, of course, is that Obama did not see anything
objectionable about PRISM. Moreover, neither did anyone around him--in
either party. On Sunday, the talkshow airwaves were thick with DC
Establishment tools rallying around PRISM--that is, rallying around
their own entrenched and centralized power.
Only a few outsiders, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)--who has retained
his outsiderness, even inside the club of the US Senate--are reading
public sentiment correctly. Paul plans a class-action suit against the
communications companies, inviting all Americans to join him. That’s the
sort of citizen-engagement effort that the insurgent and outsider-ish
Obama campaign of 2008 would have loved, even if the arrogant and
insider-ish Obama administration of 2013 hates it.
In fact, those Americans whom Rasmussen categorizes as the “political
class”--that is, those connected to DC and governance--support PRISM by
a 71 percent to 18 percent ratio. Meanwhile, the rest of the country
opposes PRISM by a more than three-to-one ratio, 69 percent to 21
percent. Now let’s think about the enormous chasm here: The political
class supports the program by a 53-point margin, while everyone else opposes it
by a 48-point margin. If you add up those two margins, 53 and 48, you
get 101. That’s a vivid indicator of the gap between the government and
the governed.
So here we see it: The elites think one thing, and the people think
another thing. Nothing new there, of course, except that rarely, if
ever, has the dichotomy between overdog and underdog been this stark.
Something is going to have to give. We are on the cusp of some huge
shift in power relations between the core and periphery, between the DC
Beltway and flyover country. Right now, Washington has the upper hand,
but an aggrieved population can always win--if it is willing to stand up
and fight.
In the minds of ordinary Americans, the fuse of outrage has been
lit. Now this is the question: Can honest but responsible leaders,
truly reflecting populist anger, find a way to force change in DC?
Moreover, can this needed reform happen without tearing apart the
country?
Let’s hope so.
But we must know this for sure: One way or another, a revolution is coming.
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