Facebook: Killing Privacy and the English Language

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

This Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of running into quite a few old friends I had not heard from in many years. Several complained to me that my email is too difficult to obtain because I was not on Facebook. It seems they did not even think to run a Google search of my name to find this blog and, apparently, it is now an incredible bother to have to ask a single other person for my contact information. Whatever. In response, I set up a very spartan Facebook entry, complete with an acerbic warning that I will only respond to emails, and will not tolerate any wretched page postings. In only a few days, though, it has been a horrifying experience.

Facebook is ghastly. I cannot believe how invasive it becomes. Did anyone else read the privacy policy? Horrid. It has taken far too long for me to slice off most of the more grasping tentacles, but I think I am content for a while now that my wall is forever fortified and my friend list is blinded. Good gods, though, I am being contacted by people I don't even know in person yet. Do they think this nonsense builds anything resembling a true relationship? They should not have access to all this information people put out there so blithely. It is dangerous! With almost no difficulty, I can chart a person's entire week just from the postings of their friends alone. It is a wretched business I say. Simply wretched.

One of my friends, laughing at my discomfort, reminded me that small towns often know everyone else’s business as well. Having come from a small town, though, I can say that small towns guard their privacy jealously. They also look out for one another, and censure the bad behavior of others through ostracism. None of that is present in Facebook. It is a gold mine of information that requires nothing in exchange. It worries me that our people, and especially the younger generations, have become so trusting that they are willing to give open access to their entire lives. Who needs domestic spying warrants when one has only to search through Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, or another such social networking sites? Perhaps more than its obliterating effect on privacy, though, I simply cannot tolerate how insipid it is.

"Oh it's so cool!" they tell me, "Look, I can throw a polar bear at you!" A polar bear, yet I was still in outraged shock over the foul idea of emoticons. Now I have to contend with flying polar bears. Perhaps they figure that if they create enough ridiculous gadgets, they will eliminate the need for any tone or meaning in writing altogether. May the gods save the English language. It is the greatest, most adaptable language in the world, yet our people and our incompetent educators are doing their utmost to mutilate it into the inarticulate grunting of savages.

Do you disagree? Just look at it. There are supposed 'friends' out there who post such scintillating updates as, "I am eating a bag of chips." When you find yourself unable to articulate a reply to these riveting observations, they toss a bloody polar bear at you. I tell you, this is nothing more than a technologically advanced version of an inanely screeching monkey chucking its own poo at its fellows.

No my honorable friends, I'll have none of it. Personal letters are dangerous enough, but at least they have substance. Phone calls are uncertain, but the connection is undeniable. Still, though, I prefer the now all but lost art of social calling: a visit in the parlor or garden over tea and scones while offering genteel conversation which does not simply make noise, but challenges and enlightens. Though the modern world has offered many improvements over my former life in the Victorian Era, Facebook is most assuredly not one of them. It provides a point of contact which can be easily found. That is all the credit I will give it.

Judge Rules Against Bush for Wiretapping Without Warrants: Triumph or Tragedy?

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

All day long, I have listened to the shrieking of my conservative friends as they denounce the ‘terrible’ decision by a U.S. district court judge to end the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. ACLU v. NSA. It seems they think the honorable judge has put all of national security at risk with the naive notion that we can fight terrorism according to the same rules we use to fight common criminals. Knowing the miserable quality of reporting the major media sources continually exhibit on questions of law, I understand why they hold such a dismal opinion of this case. However, having read the honorable judge’s opinion myself, I am thoroughly convinced that she has actually strengthened national security, and that conservatives would be the last people to take issue with this decision if they only took the time to read it. It is based soundly in traditional conservative principles. Let me see if I can condense it here.

First, no state secrets were ever at risk. The court considered the legality of the wiretapping program based on statements the Bush administration has already made public: (1) The wiretapping program exists. (2) The Bush administration monitors communication between U.S. citizens and people overseas suspected of having some connection, to a terrorist organization. (3) The monitoring is conducted without warrants.

In considering these facts, the court looked to our history. It pointed out that searches and seizures without warrant were among the offenses committed by King George III against the American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War. These searches terrified the people and chilled any speech or publication that might criticize the King for fear of being labeled seditious. After the American Revolution, the Founders enshrined two amendments into the Constitution in order to prevent such abuses from ever occurring again. We now know these as the First and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

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.--U.S. CONST. Amend. I.

The right the of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, andeffects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, andno Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath oraffirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.--U.S. CONST. Amend. IV.

These two amendments work together to protect some of the most basic liberties we hold so dear. However, Congress is mindful, too, that when it comes to national security, the obligations of these amendments might be too cumbersome to carry out in the ordinary course of business. Thus, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as, “the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence communications may be conducted.” 18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(f). This act sets up a special and secret court to grant surveillance warrants to the administration. Acknowledging the need to act quickly in matters of national security, it even gives the administration up to 72 hours after already beginning surveillance to seek a warrant. And so Congress has wisely provided for the administration to see to the needs of national security, while still permitting to judiciary to ensure the protection of civil liberties.

The Bush administration, however, has argued this is insufficient. It claims the President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, should have the right to see to matters of national security as he sees fit, independent of the laws of Congress and the warrant reviews of the judiciary. As one of the great Founders, James Madison, wrote in the Federalist Papers, though, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 47. The court refused to allow President Bush to usurp both the Legislative and Judicial branches of government, and reminded the President that he is sworn to uphold and abide by the entire Constitution, not just Article II.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation .”-- The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson wrote those words over 200 years ago describing a few of the offenses committed by King George III against the American colonists. Today, they could as easily apply to the warrantless wiretapping program of President George Bush II—or they would had the court not stuck it down. In this case, the court defended the U.S. Constitution and the liberties it enshrines, protected the separation of powers from dissolving into tyranny, and provided legitimate means for the defense of this country—all principles long cherished by conservatives. In the end, the court managed to strengthen our national security, both against the terrorists that seek to destroy us from outside our borders, and the possibility of tyranny that could destroy us from within.

As the court noted in its conclusion, “Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution. As Justice Warren wrote in U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967):

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. Id. at 264.”