Readers of this page are well aware of the revelations during the past six months of spying by the
National Security Agency (
NSA).
Edward Snowden, a former employee of an
NSA
vendor, risked his life and liberty to inform us of a governmental
conspiracy to violate our right to privacy, a right guaranteed by the
Fourth Amendment.
The conspiracy he revealed is vast. It involves former President
George W. Bush, President Obama, their aides, a dozen or so members of
Congress,
federal judges, executives and technicians for American computer
servers and telecommunications companies, and the thousands of
NSA
employees and vendors who have manipulated their fellow conspirators.
The conspirators all agreed that it would be a crime for any of them to
reveal the conspiracy.
Mr. Snowden violated that agreement in order to uphold his higher oath to defend the Constitution.
The
object of the conspiracy is to emasculate all Americans and many
foreigners of their right to privacy in order to predict our behavior
and make it easier to find among us those who are planning harm.
A
conspiracy is an agreement among two or more persons to commit a crime.
The crimes consist of capturing the emails, texts and phone calls of
every American, tracing the movements of millions of Americans and
foreigners via the GPS system in their cellphones, seizing the bank
records and utility bills of most Americans in direct contravention of
the Constitution, and pretending to do so lawfully. The pretense is that
somehow
Congress lessened the standard for spying that is set forth in the Constitution. It is, of course, inconceivable that
Congress can change the Constitution (only the states can), but the conspirators would have us believe that it has done so.
The
Constitution, which was written in the aftermath of the unhappy
colonial experience with British soldiers who executed general warrants
upon the colonists, forbids that practice today. That practice consists
of judges authorizing government agents to search for whatever they
want, wherever they wish to look. By requiring a warrant from a judge
based on probable cause of criminal behavior on the part of the very
person the government is investigating, however, and by requiring judges
to describe particularly in the warrants they issue the places to be
searched or the persons or things to be seized, the Constitution
specifically outlaws general warrants.
Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times more >
This
is more than just a constitutional violation — it is a violation of the
natural right to be left alone. When that right is violated, when all
of our private movements are monitored by the government, the menu of
our free choices is reduced, as we surely alter our private behavior to
compensate for being watched. Just as surely, the government expands its
surveillance, knowing that it is not being watched.
As a result of these revelations, no one has been fired, except
Mr. Snowden, and the conspiracy has grown. Earlier this week,
The Washington Post reported that the
FBI is now spying on us. It seems that the
FBI, no doubt jealous of the unpunished lawlessness of the
NSA,
has acquired software that permits it to utilize the tiny cameras in
many home computers to observe whoever or whatever may be in front of
the computer screen. The
FBI
doesn’t only look at whoever is using the computer screen; it also
captures the words and images on the screen. It seems to have an
affinity for monitoring online gaming, even the lawful variety.
In 1949, when
George Orwell
predicted in his terrifying novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” the future use
of television sets to watch us in our homes, many thought he was a
delusional paranoid. It turns out that he was just off by a generation.
His predictions have come to pass.
Like many growing conspiracies, this one has spawned others.
The Washington Post also reported this week that local cops, too, are jealous of the
NSA
and its ability to break the law with impunity. In an effort to catch
bad guys, local police in half a dozen American cities have begun to ask
local telecommunications providers for a “tower dump.” A tower dump
consists of digital recordings of all cellphone usage from a given cell
tower.
When some telecommunications companies balked at these
requests, the cops went to judges, some of whom unlawfully authorized
these dumps and some of whom declined. Frustrated that the
NSA
seems to get whatever it wants, some local police have used their own
technology to spy. They’ve purchased a $400,000 device that mimics
cellphone towers, drawing cellphone signals to it and enabling the cops
to capture telephone calls without the cooperation of telecommunication
companies or permission from federal judges. That’s called hacking. It
is a federal crime, and in most areas a state crime, as well.
The
assaults on personal freedom never seem to end. The very concept of
violating the rights of many in order to catch a few — a practice
perfected by tyrannical regimes — has been prohibited for 222 years by
the same Constitution that the perpetrators of these practices and the
conspirators in these schemes have sworn to uphold.
Sometimes,
dissents in Supreme Court decisions articulate American values better
than majority opinions do. Here is one from Justice Louis Brandeis that
did: “The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions
favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance
of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They
knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life
are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in
their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They
conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the
most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized
men.”
If we permit the government to destroy that right, we will live under tyrannies similar to the ones we thought we defeated.
Andrew
P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is
the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has
written seven books on the U.S. Constitution.
Photo: (S. Brenner)
