This being the last article I will write for this newspaper, I'd like to share my thoughts on a topic a bit more philosophical than one typically finds in the pages of the News-Letter. My space is too limited to fully explain my position, but I hope you will bear with me, and perhaps even come to consider a different perspective on the very core of what it means to live in modern times.
One would think that in the era of the 24-hour news cycle there would be time enough to air all the most important stories. But for the past few weeks, while we've been inundated with Imus and the endless, unnecessary pop-psychoanalysis of the Virginia Tech killer, what no one has paid much attention to is that the White House is taking steps to further erode our civil liberties in the interest of the total surveillance state.
On April 13, the administration proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would induce telecommunications companies to cooperate with federal investigations while providing immunity from lawsuits - the common person's recourse against corporate abuse. The president also wants to extend surveillance under FISA - surveillance that does not need to be justified to a judge until after it has been completed - to 360 days.
Perhaps most disturbingly, Bush wants investigators to be able to keep data collected unintentionally. That is akin to a police officer entering a home without a warrant or probable cause, discovering illegal activity, and using that discovery to bring charges. In a typical situation, that charge would be dead on arrival. FISA is supposedly a tool for protecting against foreign menaces, but in a world in which information knows no national boundaries, none of us can feel protected.
But the surveilled life does not end there. From DNA databases to searchable national police camera footage archives (as reported by NPR on April 20) to traffic cameras, and the de facto national ID system known as REAL ID, the hand of the state is reaching ever deeper into our private lives. Citizen, show me your papers!
In defense of these invasions of privacy - to the point where states even collect extensive information on all prescription medications we take - government officials claim that surveillance is necessary to protect national security and, in any case, if you do nothing illegal, you have nothing to fear.
But the ceaseless and usually unpublicized promulgation of surveillance systems is not so benign. It contributes to what is known as "surveillance creep" - the notion that as more surveillance is introduced we become more accustomed to its presence and more likely to acquiesce to ever-greater government oversight. We risk becoming inured to further violations of our rights.
An environment of surveillance is a dangerous thing because it militates against the individual. It leaves one forever in a position to be regulated and propagandized. Corporate surveillance, which may be even more nefarious than its government counterpart, relies on similar profiling techniques in order to more effectively assault us with advertising messages. We allow companies to dupe us and corral us into generic categories that are themselves an assault against individuality.
The undermining of the individual in American society, however, extends beyond surveillance and its collectivizing results. The increasing standardization of education under No Child Left Behind could ensure generations of similarly standardized modes of thought. Increasing encroachment of the state on lifestyle and morality choices - such as bans in New York on trans fats and Chicago on foie gras, and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on intact dilation and extraction abortion - indicates just how little space there is for the individual to live the unfettered life.
The nexus of government, capitalism, moral crusade and a complicit media is priming us for a society of complete discipline, the sort that Orwell feared and fascists envisioned, but that is only recently becoming possible thanks to technological advancement. Already there exists software that can detect anger in audio. Facial recognition technologies are the holy grail of many an order-and-discipline advocate.
We are too complacent about our dwindling liberties, too willing to cede not merely freedom, but the essence of our personhood to coercive entities in the halls of power, be they legislative assemblies, the Oval Office or the corporate boardroom.
What we need in order to combat the advancing forces allied against the individual is the pursuit of humanity. What I mean is that we must come to more fully recognize that the place of humanity is not one of obeying authority and ought, therefore, to live as though constantly opposed to those that would see us do so. A human life does not seek the security to relentlessly consume itself to distraction. Rather it seeks to learn, to struggle toward knowledge, to love, to explore, to appreciate fellowship, art and the wonders of the universe, both explained and unexplainable.
For that kind of human, the more completely formed representative of the species, to exist, imposition of social order must be checked. We need to think big and wide, not within the regimented confines of power and profit.
- Simon Waxman is the departing News-Letter Opinions editor. He is a senior international studies major from Newton, Mass.
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