There was a tweet on Twitter earlier that asked, "Sandy Levin, why do you support spying on Americans?" I realized that it's a very good question. My congressman is a lifelong Democrat and a fairly liberal one at that. So why would he support NSA surveillance on American citizens along with N.D.A.A, the Patriot Act and F.I.S.A.? Part of the answer may lie in his very close relationship with his brother Carl, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Undoubtedly he is privy to more sensitive information than the average congressman. It may partially be the case that Rep. Sander Levin has information that would seem to justify the government's actions infringing upon individual liberties and privacy. I do not know what could justify these policies but they presumably do have reasons. Perhaps not good reasons but reasons nonetheless.
The best justification I can think of is that these policies are needed to prevent another 9/11 style attack on this country. In fact, when Eric Snowden broke the news that the NSA has been spying on American citizens, the agency defended itself by saying that dozens of attacks had been thwarted by their use of PRISM (the data mining program that stores billions of electronic messages from email to cell phones and beyond). However, they do not provide concrete instances as evidence so we are essentially being told to take them at their word. Since they have been lying to the American people from the get go trust is not very likely.
Neither are their reasons likely to hold water. There was plenty of evidence of an impending attack on this country prior to 9/11 but no one was able to put the pieces together. What we have in PRISM is a gigantic collector of information. Why on earth would it be any better at pulling out relevant information than human agents? All they have succeeded in doing is adding another layer of bureaucracy with a lot more capability to invade citizens privacy and to violate basic constitutional rights. So, why would my congressman be interested in supporting such massive spying on citizens regardless of guilt or innocence?
It may, upon reflection, be a product of his support for Israel. Information gathered here could easily be used to aid Israel in protecting itself from attack (with the same problems in logic as the American focus on Americans). Nevertheless, Israel does not have the best track record when it comes to preserving basic civil rights (especially if you happen to be Palestinian). I doubt they would have much problem with using the NSA data collection system when it suits their interest. And I am inclined to believe that they have supporters in Congress who would not have problems either.
Lastly, I have to wonder if our representatives and senators have some other reasons for supporting such surveillance. This all depends, however, on how the information gathered is actually used. Do they gather information for political reasons? If so (like the IRS) this information can easily be misused by the government as well as politicians. Imagine a politician wanting information about an opponent...or about an ex-spouse and so on. Or what about corporations? They would have a field day with this huge collection of data records. The possibilities are endless and our representatives and senators are influenced by many outside interests. Heaven only knows what the truth may be. I just know that it is inevitable that this super-surveillance will be misused. As famously said by Lord Acton, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
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