Suddenly, white people care about privacy incursions
BY MOHAMAD TABBAA
As a result of the recent revelations about NSA surveillance, a fierce debate about privacy and the powers of security services has been raging. But in light of the fact that such an approach has long been taken towards a segment of Americans, one might ask why it required this latest series of developments to spur discussion.
Mounting domestic and international pressure against the PRISM surveillance program has forced the Obama administration to concede that the revelations have sparked “an appropriate debate.” Concern – and in some cases, outrage — at these measures has been expressed by general members of the public and politicians, many of whom made no secret of their anger or mistrust towards them. Given the seriousness of the allegations, the outrage expressed at such a situation is obviously justified; the courage of the leaker and those taking the fight to government, commendable.
But what, it must be asked, is driving all the outrage?
If one follows the debate on this issue, we are told it’s simply due to the fact that rights to privacy are being effortlessly contravened, the rule of law is being undermined (yet again), transparency has reached an all-new low, and that worst of all, this is all happening to innocent people. This is true no doubt, and anger at such facts is warranted and reasonable. But is any of this actually new?
There appears to be a discrepancy in our anger and protest against such measures. For years now, and well before the discovery of these leaked documents, we have been complacently living with the public knowledge of certain truths. Rights to privacy have been systematically and openly violated for years, without much fuss. The rule of law has been suspended indefinitely, in places like Guantanamo Bay for example, with barely a peep. Lack of transparency? We’ve gotten used to it in certain cases, it seems. Severe violations of these and other rights targeted against innocent people have become so normalized, that we now discuss them simply in terms of efficiency, stripped of any considerations for legal protections.
Welcome to the world of the Muslim, post-September 11.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/suddenly_white_people_care_about_privacy_incursions/