Rights to Privacy vs. Security Considerations
In post 9/11 America the classic struggle of libertarians defending citizens’ 4th amendment constitutional rights to privacy against government invasion has been brought to the forefront. The picture painted by the media is black and white. Either we need to let the government spy on every facet of private life so we can live in safety or we need to risk cataclysmic terrorist attacks but preserve civil rights by denying governmental access to any private information. The truth is that neither pole is a viable solution. In reality, privacy and security shouldn’t be viewed as mutually exclusive rivals. The best strategy is to give the government the information it needs to prevent terrorism, if phone tapping and email screening are necessary, so be it. The catch is to require a high level of transparency in government procedures combined with independent regulation and accountability to prevent the sorts of abuses that libertarians fear.
The claims of radical libertarians that any additional government access to private information will drastically reduce personal freedoms amount to nothing less than gross hyperbole. The government has a duty to protect the lives of its citizens and certainly preventing terrorism needs to come before protecting some rights to privacy. Protection against government invasion is useless if one can’t survive long enough to enjoy the freedom. It is quite possible for the government to have all the pertinent information for preventing terrorism without allowing the administration the sort of free reign that people fear. It’s hard to imagine the FBI being able to come up with a reason for why filming people in their showers or recording everyone’s private conversations would be necessary to prevent terrorism. The important thing is keeping the sort of accountability and transparency in place that requires the FBI and similar agencies to justify their actions in the first place.
Currently the inspectors in each cabinet department work for the very people they are supposed to monitor. It isn’t surprising that citizens don’t feel comfortable handing the government greater authority when the people charged with insuring the power isn’t abused are on the pay roles of the very officials they are watching. The solution is an independent inspector general who answers to the people rather than the president and who has the power to cut funding to agencies that become overzealous in their invasive practices. It shouldn’t be difficult for an agency like the FBI to justify a wiretap on a suspected terrorist if they have good evidence to substantiate their claims. If on the other hand the FBI has little or no evidence of an individual’s involvement in illegal activities, an independent regulator would presumably deny the agency’s request for invasions of the individual’s privacy.
The reason why people tend to fear government intrusions on private life is usually the anxiety over Big Brother type scenarios. People are uncomfortable with the idea of a government that can see what books they checked out at the library and what groceries they buy every week. This discomfort seems to stem from the fact that private citizens can be scrutinized but lack the ability to keep an eye on the government. If transparency was bilateral people might feel differently. President Bush’s administration has a tendency to withhold information from the public and demand that citizens take the government’s word for everything ranging from Saddam’s possession of WMDs to the guilt of suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay who are denied legal counsel. This approach fosters distrust of the government, particularly when it later becomes apparent (as in the case of WMDs in Iraq) that there was never sufficient evidence to support the government’s claims. If instead the government were required to present its intelligence information to the public, or at the very least to an independent committee before taking actions, people might fear the gaze of Big Brother less. The solution lies in allowing the watched to watch the watcher.
