[Infowarrior] - Valerie Plame op-ed: Would You Rather Not Know?

[Richard Forno]

Would You Rather Not Know?

One year after Edward Snowden’s leaks, we’re better off for the debate he started.

By VALERIE PLAME
June 05, 2014
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/thanks-edward-snowden-107494.html

Valerie Plame, a former career covert CIA ops officer, is author, most recently, of the spy thriller Blowback.

One year ago today, the Guardian first reported on the NSA’s mass surveillance programs. After 12 months of near-incessant accusations and arguments about everyone from Glenn Greenwald to James Clapper to Vladimir Putin, are Americans any better off for having met a bespectacled young NSA contractor and whistleblower named Edward Snowden?

In short, yes. As a former covert CIA ops officer, I firmly believe in the need for strong intelligence capabilities to keep our country secure. But as a citizen, I also believe that our intelligence services must protect both the nation and the freedoms that make it worth protecting. It has now become clear that the government has lost sight of that dual responsibility. And by violating the Constitution and evading proper oversight by Congress and the courts, the intelligence community is undermining the democratic system that it aims to protect.

Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent detrimental statements toward Snowden, we wouldn’t be having the current debate over the scope of our intelligence services if it were not for his leaks—a debate that President Obama himself has welcomed. But some in the government are trying to distract Americans from the real issue of whether the NSA’s programs are legal, wise or effective.

This comes as no surprise to me. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, my husband, Amb. Joe Wilson, questioned President George W. Bush’s claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. In an effort to distract from the substantive questions about those alleged weapons, the Bush White House tried to shift public attention to my husband and me, seeking retribution by revealing my work for the CIA.

Now, NSA surveillance supporters—including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Bill Nelson, Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper—are similarly attempting to muddy the waters. They claim—with scant evidence or examples—that Snowden’s revelations have deeply harmed national security. This is a mere talking point, and a tired tactic used for decades by intelligence officials fearful that when the public learns what the government is actually up to, it won’t be able to do it anymore. Even the president’s own review panel, which included a former counterterrorism advisor and former senior CIA official, found that the NSA’s phone records collection program has not been instrumental in preventing any attacks against the United States.

Much of the public, many members of Congress from both parties and President Obama all understand this: They have said over the past year that dragnet surveillance must end. And they are correct.

Yes, we freely share information about ourselves online through social media and web browsing. But letting private companies collect data, as the NSA does, is very different from giving it to the government, which has the power to deprive us of our freedom. The Constitution limits what the government can do, and the safeguards in the Bill of Rights were written to protect us from a federal government run amok. Accepting the NSA’s violations of the Constitution puts our democracy at risk. Unfortunately, our history is rife with examples of government surveillance tools being abused, from spying on Martin Luther King Jr. to monitoring anti-war groups opposed to the Iraq War. Why should we be so certain that such things will never happen again?

Even the fear of such surveillance can change people’s habits: A recent ESET/Harris poll found that after learning about what the NSA was doing, nearly half of the respondents said they thought more carefully about what they said and did online. Our country is now at a pivotal moment. The question before us is whether we want America to be a place where citizens are free to talk to whom we want and read what we want without looking over our shoulders.

The Senate is considering legislation to rein in the runaway surveillance state and hopefully improve on the bill passed by the House last month. Colorado Sen. Mark Udall was right when he said, “Our intelligence agencies should focus their efforts on terrorists and spies—and not law-abiding Americans.”

After the national trauma of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community amassed too much power amid an absurd level of secrecy, with more than 1.5 million people holding a Top Secret clearance. Investing intelligence agencies with this much unchecked authority endangers both our liberty and our security.

Now that the American people know the truth, the government is finally starting to move back in the right direction. So when you think about what Edward Snowden did, ask yourself: Do you wish you didn’t know?

I, for one, am glad we do.

Valerie Plame, a former career covert CIA ops officer, is author, most recently, of the spy thriller Blowback.

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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.