Why the NSA thing isn’t keeping me up at night

I’m not really that upset about what the NSA is doing. I mean don’t get me wrong. I think it should be illegal in no uncertain terms. I’m concerned in an intellectually objective way about the government doing blanket surveillance of citizens. And I don’t mind waxing philosophical on the question of what governments should and shouldn’t do to their people. However, I can’t find the energy to manufacture the shock and outrage that a lot of people have. I couldn’t really put my finger on why that is until recently.

I consider myself pretty liberal, even progressive on certain topics. But more and more, I’m realizing that my views aren’t formed by the same history and experiences as my peers. As a person of color, my opinion of how the US government relates to it’s people isn’t so blatantly negative. I don’t have such a black and white view of the morality of those in charge. That may seem odd, but I’ll try to explain. It’s going to be difficult though, so try to keep in mind that there is much more to my position than what’s represented here.

A Little Background

I’ve talked to a few people about the government surveillance issue. I’ve shared David Simon’s thought-provoking post about how people shouldn’t be that surprised by this, and we may not be as far down the slippery slope as some claim. I mostly subscribe to the feeling that this is really just an expansion of the type of things the government already does on a smaller scale. I was prepared for the rebuttals and I already knew what they would say. Here’s a well written piece from the founder of pinboard, where he presents a direct response to Simon. But I’ll pull a quote from my buddy Oscar’s post that sums up the general sentiment of most people.

The moment we start just blindly trusting our government is when we give up our freedoms. Jefferson and the original founders warned about this. They made a bunch of laws to protect the citizens from the government.

This is what brought it home for me. I can understand this perspective, because I know it comes through a certain world view. I even sympathize with it on days when I’m feeling particularly upper middle class (which I am). But I realized that my world view is not quite the same as my white liberal friends, and it never will be. As a person of color, I have never had a reason to trust our government. I have never felt included in the laws those founders made up. I have never in my life felt safe from the institutions that make up our government. And so it’s difficult for me to feel some creeping dread that these things are being slowly taken away from me.

The government has never needed covert surveillance to oppress people of color. They stood publicly and proudly and made laws that forced us into ghettos and denied us education. They didn’t require permission from secret courts to march into our neighborhoods, into our homes, and crack our skulls. They have been locking us up and throwing away the key based on flimsy charges for decades. And that’s after they decided to stop just murdering us outright. The thing is, they still get away with doing all of these things today if they feel like it. But it doesn’t raise the same hue and cry as collecting phone data (excuse me, metadata). Because that seems to be the form that people of privilege think their oppression will take, as opposed to what ours looks like.

Now it’s not my intention to sound all militant here. Don’t read the above to yourself in an angry Malcolm X voice. These are simple statements of facts as I see them. I don’t mean to dismiss people’s real concern over this issue, and I’m not making some point about how “things could be worse”, as though we should accept things as they are. All I’m trying to do is get folks to consider an alternate perspective on how our idea of a government of the people is progressing in these United States of America.

When you look at our recent history through the lens of minorities, we are not on a slippery downward slope, but a tentatively hopeful upward climb. For POCs, consider that our government has been convinced to stop enslaving us, allowed us to vote, stopped looking the other way as we were brutalized by our fellow citizens, allowed us access to better and better education, provided programs that seek to undo at least a little of the damage caused by centuries of racist policies, let us be elected to public office to represent our own interests. And finally, our government has allowed one of us to become the most important person in the free world.

That is what I call progress.

Thanks Obama

Let’s talk about President Obama for a second. I almost wrote a separate post, but I’ll just take a brief tangent here if you’ll permit me. I often get into political debates with friends who are irate over some of his policies. They want to convince everyone that he’s a terrible president because he hasn’t managed to end the wars yet, and he hasn’t closed Guantanamo, and he’s prosecuting whistleblowers. They tell me they’ve lost all faith in Obama. I get where they’re coming from, and sometimes I commiserate with them, because these are important issues and I’d like to see them improved as well.

But I can’t seem to raise the same ire against the man himself. In the secret place in the back of my mind, I’m still amazed that white people managed to have any faith in him in the first place. I never thought he’d get elected. None of us did. When he won, we were elated of course, but then we set about waiting for the next inevitability. His assassination. There was no way they’d actually let him take a stab at running the country. But low and behold we’re rounding out 5 years without that happening. Huzzah! While most people are busy being disappointed that Obama hasn’t managed to solve all of the world’s problems (like he said he would). I’m kinda glad he’s even still around to try.

Meanwhile, he’s managed to pass the Affordable Care Act. To my friends, it’s “deeply flawed”. And I suppose it is. But it’s also going to give millions of people the insurance that they have been denied up until now. Most of those people are low income citizens who weren’t eligible or couldn’t previously afford it. And guess who makes up a large proportion of those people. Yep, minorities. He’s revived the DREAM Act to try and curb what our government has done to immigrant families. He’s tackled Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and come out in support of gay marriage (to a degree). He’s tried to bring us out of the worst recession in decades, and while things aren’t great, they aren’t terrible either. And they could very well have been terrible.

To be completely honest, I also give the benefit of the doubt that Barack Obama has no interest in continuing to kill brown people in other countries. I think he’d pack up and walk away today if he could. The fact that he has not suggests to me that there is a power structure greater than him that would make it very unpleasant if he actually tried. And he has chosen to not fight that battle so that maybe he can win some others. That is extremely unfortunate. But I also don’t think it’s the worst decision a leader has ever made. He has at least managed to get them to agree to a gradual withdrawal, where as his predecessor was trying to prepare us for perpetual war.

He’s done all of this despite the fact that he is still a black man in the midst of the most powerful white oligarchy in the history of the world, which also happens to be the same country that has a unique history of having nothing but contempt and hatred for our people. Personally, I think he’s doing alright. That’s why I voted for him twice and still have few regrets.

President Obama has also done a ton of questionable things, and some things that are unquestionably awful. Just like every other president I’ve heard about, except maybe Lincoln. From what I’ve read, that guy was alright. But it’s hard for me to feel like Obama has made things demonstrably worse for American citizens. At least not the ones that look like me. So sometimes I find it difficult to join in the angry chorus about how we are so much worse off. I can’t help but feel like if you’re just now getting worried, it’s because you’ve enjoyed a certain amount of privilege and blissful ignorance before now.

Even so, there’s the argument that the President has set a dangerous precedent for some future generation who’s government isn’t so… benevolent. That’s a valid point and I don’t dispute it. If you’re still with me, then read on.

Big Brother

Back to the NSA thing. I’m gonna try to bring this home if I can. In light of all the above, I hope it’s clearer why I don’t really spend time fretting over the NSA collecting my phone records. If the government wanted to do terrible things to me, they would already be doing it. There’s nothing stopping them.

If you’re looking at the recent “revelations” of mass surveillance and thinking this is a signal that our government is morally bankrupt and heading towards tyranny, it may be because you think they need an excuse. It may be because you’ve always been taught that your government was beholden to its citizens. And in order for that narrative to exist, you’ve had to kind of ignore the fact that up until recently, a large chunk of the citizenry was effectively excluded from that definition.

But it’s pretty difficult for me to ignore that fact. Even though I think they’re morally wrong, these machinations don’t have the same effect on me. To me it’s just a small reminder that our government has always had a boot poised over our necks. The fact that I’m able to sit here comfortably and debate with you about these things has never been something I took for granted.

When I’m confronted with that looming boot, I don’t really care how massive the scale of it is. I’ve always been more curious about the question of what keeps it from coming down. Our government has always had plenty of means with which to betray us if they so choose. Maybe we’re debating at what point their forces will be so great that we can’t stand against them if necessary.

Well, I’m of the opinion that we passed that point long ago, and I’m not sure what we can do to stop them from continuing to amass these destructive capabilities. The gap will only widen, because that is what they’re incentivized to do. They don’t really have to listen to us at all, and if you bother to pay attention, they demonstrate that fact to us constantly.

So yeah, the NSA thing is worrying I guess. But I can’t see how all of the rhetoric about Forefathers vs. Hitler really helps. Instead, I think what makes sense is for us to try to determine what things would incentivize our government to act against us. They’re not going to adhere to our Constitution simply because we wagged our finger at them sternly. People who drop bombs on children aren’t likely to be shamed into realizing the error of their ways. They’re going to do it because they still benefit more from keeping us happy than not. It seems to me that an empire filled with relatively comfortable, upwardly mobile, middle class citizenry has made them richer and more powerful than a fearful, distrustful, insurgent populace ever could.

This is a deeply cynical view. I don’t feel great about it. I’m sure people will say it’s hopelessly naive and admittedly more than a little biased as well. But it is not meant to be defeatist. I still support the cause of bringing more transparency to our government and doing our best to ensure they still act in our best interest. I’m not suggesting that we stop haranguing our government to be better. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’m suggesting that if you look at the fullness of history, we should be cautiously optimistic. Because whatever we’re doing, it actually seems to be working.

We still have quite a long way to go of course. But hey, at least the government still has enough attachment to our core values to try to hide the fact that they’re listening to our phone calls. When they stop trying to hide it, maybe I’ll be more worried.