The End Game of Surveillance, a response to a recent Comment

“The standard reply to any example of real world consequences for the innocent is that such instances are rare and they are a small price to pay for security. No one claimed the system was perfect, all we are saying is that checking bags at random for no reason (http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1175102054303320.xml&storylist=simetro)
is obviously safer than not checking them at all. Unless you are doing something wrong, the only consequence you are likely to suffer is having to leave 5 mins early. How can a rational person be against that?” Anonymous Comment

Anonymous makes an excellent point, one that is very difficult to refute if you place his argument in the paradigm within which America is now living. “Safety at the cost of a few is worth it if it preserves the many.” These are the sacrifices we need to make for safety. How true. However if the paradigm is shifted, the argument falls apart.
First of all, on a practical level, let’s take his comment back to the context of the article. Anonymous says this is a rare occurrence. In the example cited, the problem for the professor began with his name on the “No Fly” list. Let’s forget for a moment how his name even got on that list (which is plausibly explained in the original article) and let’s just focus on the supposed rarity with which this situation occurs for the common law abiding American. Before September 11, there were exactly 16 people on this list. Now, there are over 44,000 with a probable number of 30,000 false positives a year. I would hardly call this rare. And this is just for flying on an airplane.
Second, let’s deconstruct the “Safety vs. Convenience” argument with a simple yet very important shift in the way we think about the nature and role of government in our lives as American Citizens. When you are screened as a passenger on an airplane (or train) to the point that a background check is done on you before you even board the plane, you are being treated as though you are a criminal before you commit the crime. This is inherently contrary to the Constitution. It does not matter that you have not given any indication at all that you are a criminal, terrorist, liability, etc., you are still being treated like one.
But let’s go one step deeper to really define why the “safety” argument is inherently flawed. Let’s go backwards in time more than 60 years. We are in the middle of World War II. We are “fighting evil”. Now we move forward a few years to “victory” and we slowly move towards the Cold War. Paranoia sets in and lunatics like Joe MacCarthy are allowed to run amok. Thankfully for our Country, he was finally disgraced and refuted. But over the next 50 years or so, an attitude of “doing whatever it takes” to fight evil ideologies such as Communism has quietly settled into the American psyche. As long as we are fighting those damned commies, I don’t care about anything else. It was this attitude that was used to build a government that intrudes into people’s lives in the name of preserving liberty. Fast forward to September 11, another evil ideology attacks our nation and we are caught completely off guard (in the same way we were caught off guard by Pearl Harbor). Now the nation rallies behind our fearless President (and you can count me in that number in the first couple years after September 11) and his attitude of win at any cost. The USA Patriot Act is passed, allowing for unprecedented levels of Executive power, government spying and intrusions on constitutional rights such as the Fourth Amendment. These changes in the law were not only accepted, they were applauded as ways to protect the very freedoms that they took away. Here we are at the present day. The government is using their unprecedented power to spy on American citizens who they say are suspected of being tied to terrorists. The groundwork for the laws that allow this kind of action were laid over the last 60 years and accelerated in the last 5 years. While currently the government claims that they are only investigating terrorists, or suspected terrorists, the future looks much darker.
One of the dearest freedoms that Americans enjoy and have defended with their blood is the first amendment right to free speech which translates in our right to dissent. How do you effectively quell free speech - and consequently dissent – when you are the government? You make sure you know what everyone is saying all the time by surveilling email, radio, internet use, telephone calls, written word, public places, etc. And then you put in place laws that allows for secret indictments, secret imprisonment, secret trial and secret conviction. We are handing the government this power like scarred little children saying, “Help us, Keep us safe!” Many people cannot imagine an America where this would happen but look how far we have come. There are several documented cases of local and federal law enforcement spying on legal protests and keeping voluminous secret files on law abiding citizens who are exercising their fundamental rights. How long before legal dissent is squashed under the pressure to keep our nation “Safe”. Safe from what!?! What are we trying to preserve here? We are definitely not preserving freedom.