"Does homeland security mean a person can't be secure in their own home? Government data on phone and electronic communication of private citizens is scary or is it needed to insure our safety? And the spying on our allies is making many other countries angry and dissolving their trust in the U.S. Is this needed? Where do we go from here?"
These are some of the questions discussed by a panel at the RAND forum last week. Henry Willis, director of the RAND Homeland Security Defense center was the moderator for the discussion. Peter Bibring is a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California represented the view that Americans rights are being violated. Rafael Garcia, Jr., is a special agent in charge of the Intelligence Division at the FBI in Los Angeles. He represented the view that intelligence is needed to insure the safety of the people and that they are very careful in how they gather intelligence in order to not violate rights. Cameron Munter is a retired career diplomat and served as ambassador to Pakistan, 2010-2012, ambassador to Serbia and served in embassies in the Czech Republic and Poland. He is now a professor at Pomona College.
The Boston Marathon Bombing reminded us that terrorism could happen anywhere at any time. We need security because of a greater threat. We must cooperate with other nations and do diligence and balance surveillance with civil liberties. This was the view of Mr. Garcia from the F.B.I. He also said that oversight is being provided by congress and the courts. We must balance surveillance tools with personal rights.
Mr. Bibring said that this shift to collecting tons of data is more that the F.B.I. can handle...like adding hay to the hay stack and then searching for the needle. This has led to greated ineffectiveness. He said the government has gone too far without public discussion and policy making. He said that people ask: "If I am not doing anything wrong, why does it matter?" He said the government can piece together small amounts of information and blow them up into investigations and arrests. This has been used on political groups. He said that we need to be concerned about intimidation and search and the information gathered at public peaceful rallies and demonstrations.
Mr. Munter said that we must have an international dimension. He is concerned about the denial of due process to Americans and those around the world. In order to continue our extraordinary cooperation with other countries, we must understand and respect foreign cultures. He asked: "Where are the limits of trust and judgement?" Surveillance of foreign governments has broken trust. We need to develop policies together with our allies. Snowden's release of information was a violation of trust also, but it has brought this issue to the table and needs to be resolved. He said we are in deep trouble with our allies and our reputation has been damaged. We have learned the hard way and we have to do something about it now.
The F.B.I. is in a bind. They are expected to prevent bad things from happening but to do this they need to use surveillance and information gathering on potential bad guys.
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