Surveillance in White and Black, or The Seven Deadly Sins of Progressives

Faithful Democrats are on the correct side of the torture and detention debate. However, I fear we will be on the wrong side of the surveillance

debate. Let me explain. As a white person, I confess to finding recent uproar by my white sisters and brothers over government surveillance
rather embarrassing.

There are many
battles to fight on the frontlines of injustice in our nation and our
world. The greatest injustices almost
always devastate the lives, homes, and communities of non-whites far out of
proportion to their numbers in relation to whites. Yet, us white folk seem only to get truly
vexed when we can imagine ourselves as possible victims of injustice, even when
actual victims of massive injustice are easy to find.

Consider the recent uproar over National Security Agency
eavesdropping on international phone calls.
Many insist that such surveillance should not take place without court
oversight. Yet, the NSA conducts
surveillance all over the world, and no one is suggesting that surveillance
outside our borders requires court oversight.
This means that eavesdropping on a call from the United States to someone in a country like Saudi Arabia is considered illegitimate by many if
done from within the United States
but legitimate if done from outside the United States. What is the relevant difference?

We are told that privacy is being violated. I’ll bet a lot of homeless individuals and
families would like to have such problems.
No one thinks the right to privacy is absolute under all
circumstances. The issue is whether or
not surveillance is unjustified. Yet, in
the absence of a technique that would allow the government to differentiate the
phone calls of terrorists from all others, the government should be allowed
some reasonable measure of probability that it will discover information
relevant to our security. Recent suggestions to review surveillance activities every 45 days have been
proposed. That’s a lot less time than we
allow the government to keep mostly non-white-innocent-until-proven-guilty
young men detained while they await trial.

Others will object to increased governmental power. This objection makes progressives sound like
libertarians. I wish the federal
government would exercise a lot more power than it currently does to reduce
poverty and racial inequality (and I really don’t mind them using their power
to stop terrorists, either).

Still others will insist that the problem is with unchecked
power that one day may be abused. I have
no objections to current efforts by many Republicans and Democrats to increase
oversight on the activities of the executive branch. Power, however, need not wait for an absence
of checks in order to be abused. I see a
clear abuse of power in torture and unjustified detentions, and in laws that
perpetuate racial and economic inequality, but I have not seen any in the
surveillance debate.

Concerns have been raised that the federal government has
recently spied on a Quaker House where anti-war meetings were held and in the
past has spied on the likes of Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. It has also been noted that authorities have
been granted the right to have spies attend religious services. Yet, spying on Quakers and Dorothy Day is
absurd, not abusive, and the right to send spies into religious services seems
entirely legitimate.

The spying on King by the F.B.I. is disturbing on many
levels. However, none of the NSA
activities of current concern, nor any of the powers granted in the Patriot Act,
come even close to the abusive level of surveillance directed against
King. The differences between
surveillance practices should not be ignored in debates over new surveillance
practices.

Religion does, however, provide the context for what I
really think is going on here. The
current debate over government surveillance reveals the enduring relevance of
the seven deadly sins.

Pride: Many
political marches today seem designed to make the marchers feel good about
themselves, rather than to achieve any change.
Much outrage over government surveillance seems to serve a similar
function.

Envy: Victims of
injustice occupy an honored place in the thought world of many who currently
oppose government surveillance, and now we can all consider ourselves to be
victims because we have phones, library cards, and e-mail accounts.

Gluttony: Lattés
are a few shots of energy, but mostly warm milk, a drink classically designed
to put people to sleep. This drink could
be the symbol of much recent political opposition by progressives. We could save money and shed pounds if we
drank fewer of them.

Lust: While not
embarrassed that God or the ancestors might be watching what we view on the
web, we do care if the federal government finds out, even when they do so in an
effort to keep children away from pornography (this is the context of a recent
federal request to Google and others for search activity information).

Anger: Many on
the left are still so mad at George Bush and Dick Cheney (and at the inability
of the Democrats to oppose them effectively) that they can’t think straight
when they oppose him.

Greed: Opposing
government surveillance does not require increased taxes, reduced (meaning less
than maximum) property values, or changed consumption habits. It challenges government, but it does not
challenge citizens.

Sloth: Instead of
devoting their political energies to laws and policies that are devastating
many (mostly nonwhite) communities and individuals, a political struggle that
would be complex and time-consuming, many are only convinced to interrupt their
web surfing for the purpose of expressing outrage when they imagine that the
government might be watching them.

Yes, we must pick our battles. However, I fear that we are picking the wrong
ones.