It is going to take some time to get to the bottom of recent stories about secret data collection by the National Security Agency (NSA). I will refrain from summing up what we know so far because news continues to break; any précis I might provide will be inaccurate. A lot remains unclear: the scale of the collection, its duration, its legal justification, possible deceptive comments about it by government officials, and the role of private communications companies in its preparation, to name just a few. We can anticipate an avalanche of information and analysis in the days and weeks ahead.
We can also expect the usual partisan excuses and accusations. Democrats will claim that some or all of the programs under dispute were initiated under President George W. Bush. Republicans will denounce Democrats as hypocrites for supporting policies under President Obama that they criticized under his predecessor. To a large extent, the partisans will be right.
They will also be missing the point. Because the most important question is this: given the ongoing revelations, what – if anything – should we do now.
Last week, President Obama said this in response to the brewing controversy:
“You’ll remember when I made that speech a couple of weeks ago about the need for us to shift out of a perpetual war mindset. I specifically said that one of the things that we’re going to have to discuss and debate is how were we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy, because there are some trade-offs involved.
“And I welcome this debate. And I think it’s healthy for our democracy. I think it’s a sign of maturity, because probably five years ago, six years ago, we might not have been having this debate. And I think it’s interesting that there are some folks on the left, but also some folks on the right who are now worried about it who weren’t very worried about it when it was a Republican president. I think that’s good that we’re having this discussion.”
Even as reliable a supporter of the administration as Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein could not help mocking the president’s statement. As Klein notes, the debate is occurring despite the administration’s best efforts to keep the details of the NSA’s date collection programs from the American public. Obama’s statement comes close to a perfect distillation of chutzpah; one is reminded of the apocryphal story of a man convicted of murdering his parents who pleads mercy in sentencing because he is an orphan. Still, I believe we should accept the president at his word. The issues here are complex and profound, touching upon matters as vital as personal privacy, public accountability, the role of secrecy in a democracy, and the difficult trade-offs between safety and liberty. Let the debate begin!
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.