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A Top Israeli security official zeroed in on the American system of airline security: “You worry about what people are carrying. In Israel we worry about who the people are.”
The conversation with Avi Dichter, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, took place three years ago, but it came roaring back to me amid reports of federal snooping on Americans’ use of phones, computers and credit cards. The sweeping collection of data on private behavior is every bit as indiscriminate and flawed as the airport-screening system.
In both, everybody is guilty until proven innocent. Because one terrorist hid a bomb in his shoe, we all must remove our shoes before flying. Because one terrorist hid a bomb in his underwear, we all are subject to X-ray- like screenings.
The little old Lutheran lady from Peoria is as suspect as the Saudi Arabian student seeking a pilot’s license. Justice is supposed to be blind, not stupid.
Meanwhile, the FBI had been warned about the jihadist turn by one of the brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, but took its eye off him, perhaps out of an excessive concern for his rights.
The Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood had identified himself as a “Soldier of Allah,” but the brass didn’t bounce him because they were afraid of the diversity cops.
The balance of rights and security is out of balance. On one hand, security officials let terrorists slip through the cracks because they fear charges of anti-Muslim bias. On the other, they secretly vacuum up the personal data and habits of 300 million people.
The snooping is an outgrowth of 9/11, but “growth” is the operative word. An emergency response has been expanded and institutionalized, secretly and repeatedly.
The warrantless wiretapping program the Bush administration started focused on catching terror suspects from abroad communicating with Americans. But, like mushrooms after the rain, the program spread exponentially to where all phone calls in America are subject. Another program extends the snooping to the Internet and credit-card use, though the details are sketchy.
It is of little comfort that the seizure of this electronic trail is defended by both Republicans and Democrats as routine. They are government insiders who signed off on it.
Nor is it comforting to know the sweep of phones doesn’t cover content, only numbers, locations and time. The same people who say don’t worry also insisted the Internal Revenue Service can be trusted to treat all taxpayers fairly.
Oh, and the IRS safeguards your money, too, except when it stages multimillion-dollar conferences so the tax man can let loose his inner Captain Kirk and Doctor Spock.
When government says, “Trust Me,” the right response is to say, “Convince Me.” But you don’t have a chance to say that when Washington works in secret. And there is no accountability when lying under oath is just another day at the office for the attorney general and the director of national security.
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” President Obama said Friday. OK, but he also employs Eric Holder and James Clapper. And he said you could keep your health insurance under ObamaCare, the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent, and the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous reaction to a video.
The point is not to smear the motives of the men and women running these security programs. No doubt they are sincerely trying to protect us from terrorism.
Yet history teaches that power corrupts, and there is no indication that human nature improved in the last 10 years. America’s Founders recognized that individual liberty, universally bestowed by God, is the only bulwark against centralized authority’s tendency to tyranny.
Privacy is key to that bulwark. To concede that the government is entitled to possess all records of electronic communications is to forfeit almost any meaningful limit to government reach.
Once those records are in the bureaucrats’ hands, it is only a short step to abuse. That step might come from an accident, an emergency, or malevolence. It might come from hackers, or a president who believes critics are illegitimate — and their communications fair game for political purposes.
Whatever the cause, the step is inevitable. When that day comes, remember this one.
The Shel is starting to crack
Imagine you are Sheldon Silver. Your reputation is mud, parents don’t want their daughters to work in Albany and a majority of state voters say you should get out of town.
Do you go? Hell, no!
Albany is a curious place full of curious people, none more so than Silver. The Assembly speaker since 1994, he is New York’s Teflon Man.
His backroom style and firm hold on the perks and power of the Assembly let him shrug off calls for his resignation. His constituency of about 100 Democrats, most from the city, say his name with the respect accorded mob bosses. Even Gov. Cuomo dances around him.
But nobody is impervious forever, and the drip-drip-drip of scandal isn’t stopping. In the same week that a Quinnipiac poll showed only 22 percent think Silver should stay as speaker, against 51 percent who want him out, he was sued by two of the women who claim they were sexually harassed by the disgraced Vito Lopez.
The women were hired by the creepy former Democratic assemblyman after two earlier women in his office filed complaints over similar treatment, a pattern that involved eight women over several years.
But the new lawsuits, one each in federal and state courts, target Lopez and Silver with an interesting twist. The women say they would have been spared Lopez’s torment if Silver had not hidden two earlier harassment complaints with $103,000 of taxpayer hush money.
“Lopez would not have been able to abuse plaintiffs without the assistance of” Silver, the federal complaint argues.
Silver has gotten away with his role because he had veto control over whether the ethics panel would charge him.
But the lawsuits could be different. Depending on what information emerges, and the possibility that Silver will testify under oath, he finally might become too toxic even for Albany. Imagine that.
Taxing and stagnating
Pssst — economic growth is bypassing the tri-state region. A federal report says New Jersey and New York both grew last year at a sluggish 1.3 percent — ranking 36th and 37th among the 50 states, respectively. Connecticut’s economy was the worst, and actually shrank by 0.1 percent. The national growth rate was 2.5 percent.
But don’t dare say the region’s high taxes played any role. That would make you a cold-hearted right-winger.
But they did.
Mike’s bullying taxi stand
Now that court rulings allow the city to expand street hails throughout the five boroughs and allow smartphone apps to signal taxis, what of Mayor Bloomberg’s threat to a taxi mogul to “destroy your f–king industry?” Does the vow to get vengeance after Bloomberg leaves office still stand?
Inquiring minds want to know.