The Humpty-Dumpty NSA Surveillance Program

Dear Mr. President,

It’s like Chinese water torture—the steady drip drip drip of revelations from the Snowden documents. First the phone logs, then PRISM, then the surveillance of China and Hong Kong, the bugs and wiretaps of EU offices and our European allies, the hacking of Germany’s phone and internet systems—and now Brazil’s—with more coming and the knowledge that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the Humpty-Dumpty NSA program back together again. You call it espionage and treason; I call it a heroic attempt to save democracy. And there’s more. The McClatchy report exposed your Insider Threat Program that not only encourages but requires government employees to snitch on “high-risk persons or behaviors,” i.e., potential whistle-blowers (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html#.UdwuFaz-tw1) and in today’s NY Times (“Judge Urges President To Address Prisoner Strike,” p. A12) Judge Gladys Kessler of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia ruled that “It is perfectly clear that force-feeding is a painful, humiliating and degrading process” but Congress has prevented her from intervening. You, however, have the authority to address the issue, she wrote. Even the Times editors found the backbone to denounce the secrecy of the FISA court and urged Congress to pass Sen. Merkley’s legislation that would require declassification of the court’s activities so we can see what they’re doing. And the Bradley Manning trial? Not going well for the government. Today Colonel Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, testified that the Guantanamo files released by Manning contained no useful information for an enemy and, in fact, most of it had already been made public by the Pentagon, a documentary, a book, and in news articles. The prosecution has produced zero evidence so far that Manning knowingly aided the enemy but no matter, the fix is in; the government wants a conviction to deter future whistle-blowers. But it’s too late: the Europeans are angry, the Central and South Americans are furious, and maybe the Americans are coming out of their somnolent trance. Thanks to Manning, Snowden, et al, America’s Secret Security State has been exposed and seen for what it is—the abuse of power that is leading us to a world of perpetual war with neither security nor freedom. It shows us as dangerous, a threat to world peace and that’s the first step, the recognition of abuse, to stopping it.