Who Should Spy on Who?

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is the first amendment to the constitution of the United States and the first sentence of the Bill of Rights. It’s place as first speaks of the importance that the drafters of the constitution and the Bill of Rights gave to the ideas it embodies.

The Bill of Rights specifically sets out the rights of ‘the people.’ One of the main ideas in the first amendment is that no government can restrict the right of ‘the people’ to know the facts about what is happening in the country.

The drafters of the Bill of Rights had just been through a bloody and destructive war of independence. They knew that the ability of the people to inform themselves was vital to the protection of their freedom. A number of people had died while working to spread the news of both the successes and failures of the revolution. The British had closed many papers and severely regulated the few they allowed to operate. They had restricted public meetings and done everything in their power to keep ‘the people’ from finding out the facts. The drafters of the first amendment knew ‘the people‘ had to know what was going on in order to protect their freedom. Given the placement as first of the guarantees, the drafters believed that of freedom of speech and assembly and of the press, and ‘the peoples‘ right to know are of paramount importance.

Today, we are immersed in what some have called a constitutional crisis. The debate centers around the extent of Presidents power and the right of the government to know what ‘the people’ are doing and saying. The government’s ability to know these things has been enhanced by technology to a point that many the drafters of the above words would find miraculous. This is evidenced by the NSA’s ability to carry out surveillance of perhaps tens of thousands of American’s communications for more than five years without being detected.

It strikes me that the same advanced technology could be employed by ‘the people’ to inform themselves of what the government is doing.

I suggest that all government meetings and proceedings and all conversations of all elected and politically appointed officials be monitored and openly available to all registered voters. From a technology standpoint this would be trivial. There is even precedent in the broadcast of sessions of congress and select congressional committee sessions.

What might be the problems with this idea?
I can immediately see that some will claim that this would be aid to our enemies. My first response is that we should be careful to not make enemies, then the problem goes away. I’m sure this will not satisfy those critics, so I suggest a sort of FISA court procedure, whereby government officials and agencies could get court approved authorization for secrets. There could even be a similar seventy-two hour retroactive approval for unexpected events. The bugs would still be live and recording, the information would simply be held untill a ruling was made or the time ran out.

The only other problem I see is getting those who don’t want their dealings to see the light of day to accept openness. That is a matter for ‘the people’ to address.

I don’t imagine this arrangement would solve all the problems this country faces, but I think talking about this sort of solution may help.

A.M.
1/30/06