Stop the Program!

In an interview this evening with Jim Lehrer on the Lehrer News Hour, we heard Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez say 'If you listen very carefully to the critics, none of them, or very few of them, are saying stop the program.' He was referring to the NSA spying, and thought public opinion was actually with the administration on the grounds that this is narrow and focused spying. When he puts it like that, Gonzalez sounds ridiculous—lots of people are against the program as it stands now. For example, a group of Democratic Senators are sponsoring a resolution to reject the administration's arguments. But no doubt Gonzalez is right that most objections are to the fact that the administration didn't go through the FISA courts or other legal channels, not to the spying itself.

The real problem with the surveillance is not merely that it's illegal, nor that it is focused or not—although those are concerns. What's really at stake is the subtler effect these programs have on our political culture: each time we accept the administration's arguments, no matter how small the new power it acquires, we also renew our willingness to accept the idea that we are at war and under a security emergency. The program should be rejected on the ground that we are not and should not be at war; quit trying to convince us that we cannot enjoy our liberties because our survival is at stake. On the off-chance that Gonzalez is listening, we are happy to be one of the vocal few: Stop the Program!