Day: June 10, 2013
The real scandal
Edward Snowden, the techie who revealed top secret National Security Agency collection programs, has opened a debate that was overdue: how much privacy are we willing the sacrifice for an uncertain security upgrade? In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it is understandable that we launched a massive effort to improve intelligence collection and enlarge the intelligence apparatus. We had been attacked. We needed to know more about what other threats were out there. The US government grounded all commercial aircraft that day. In retrospect, that was an over-reaction, since no other plotters were found, other than those who seized and crashed four planes. But at the time it was a perfectly reasonable, though costly, precaution.
It is now almost 12 years later. Very few Americans are being killed by terrorists–on the order of a dozen per year, mostly abroad in Kabul. The odds of being killed by lightning are higher. Maybe that’s because what we have done has worked well. Maybe what we did was overkill. But with time comes perspective and maybe wisdom. President Obama has vigorously defended the surveillance programs that Snowden revealed. They had been briefed to Congress and appear to have been legal. Now they should be debated in public. My bet is that most Americans will not regard what the US government is doing as excessive, until it is clearly abused and the abuses made public.
I for one don’t really much care if my emails and text messages are stored in some vast data base under a mountain in Utah. I long ago started assuming that it was all available as soon as I touched the QWERTY keys. I also have been known to go skinny dipping. I’m just not all that self-conscious. But other people are and deserve their say. I have no doubt but that abuses are possible, ranging in import from trivial to gross. One only need read how government misbehavior led to Daniel Ellsberg’s escaping judicial sanction for publishing the Pentagon papers to know that Washington is capable of doing terrible things. Read more
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Peace Picks, June 10-14
1. Drones and the Future of Counterterrorism in Pakistan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Monday, June 10 / 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Frederic Grare, Samina Ahmed
The future use of drones in Pakistan is uncertain after President Obama’s recent speech on national security. Washington has now satisfied some of the demands of Pakistan’s incoming prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. But while drone strikes were seen in Islamabad as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, they were also arguably an effective counterterrorism mechanism. Samina Ahmed will discuss the future use of drones in Pakistan. Frederic Grare will moderate.
Register for the event here:
http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/06/10/drones-and-future-of-counterterrorism-in-pakistan/g7f0
2. Tyranny of Consensus: A Reception with Author Janne E. Nolan, Century Foundation, Monday, June 10 / 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Venue: Stimson Center, 1111 19th Street Northwest, 12th Floor, Washington D.C., DC 20036
Speakers: Janne E. Nolan
In “Tyranny of Consensus,” Nolan examines three cases-the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa-to find the limitations of American policy-makers in understanding some of the important developments around the world. Assisted by a working group of senior practitioners and policy experts, Nolan finds that it is often the impulse to protect the already arrived at policy consensus that is to blame for failure. Without access to informed discourse or a functioning “marketplace of ideas,” policy-makers can find themselves unable or unwilling to seriously consider possible correctives even to obviously flawed strategies.
Register for the event here:
http://tcf.org/news_events/detail/tyranny-of-consensus-a-reception-with-author-janne-e.-nolan
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