The School of the Americas, which has been known as WHINSEC (the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) since 2001, trains 700 to 1,000 Latin American leaders every year in U.S. military tactics, counter-terrorism, suppression of the narcotics trade and, according to the non-governmental organization School of the Americas Watch, torture and the violation of human rights. Even in its latest guise as WHINSEC, this school presents a misleading image of the United States to Latin Americans and to the world at large. It ought to be shut down.

There is little doubt or debate that the School of the Americas in its original guise, between 1946 and 2001, condoned and encouraged the use of tactics that were fundamentally demeaning and uncivilized. When the Pentagon released training manuals from the School into the public domain in 1996, outsiders were shocked to read the brutal interrogation methods of these manuals. They involved practices such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, targeting of family members and similarly abhorrent tactics. Joseph Kennedy II, the son of Robert Kennedy, then serving as a Massachusetts Congressman, said, “These manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society.” Surely the United States would not stoop to Stalinist tactics as a matter of course – but it did.

I do not doubt that WHINSEC has remedied the most egregious errors of the School of the Americas. Also, I recognize that since narcotics trafficking is so pervasive in many Latin American countries, we ought to share policing best practices with our allies in the Organization of American States (OAS). Still, there are alternative venues, such as Interpol, to exchange our policing best practices without the historical baggage of the School of the Americas. Also, the closing of WHINSEC would make a lot of sense in the course of a holistic re-examination of American foreign policy in the 21st century.

Barack Obama said in the first presidential debate, “In the ‘60s… the ideals and values of the United States inspired the entire world. I don’t think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same.” (Source: CNN.com transcript). If Senator Obama is elected, it seems that a major re-evaluation of our foreign policies is in store. Our policy towards Latin America is a big component.

During the Cold War, United States policy towards Latin America was single-minded. It had one goal: prevent Communist regimes from sprouting in the region by any means necessary, including aiding and comforting military thugs who brutalized and tyrannized their people. The end of the Cold War didn’t change the single-mindedness of U.S. policy towards Latin America, only the target. Instead of preventing Communism, we now prevent the drug trade and ally with anybody who can help us in the endeavor.

The heavily regulated legalization of marijuana, the reduction of draconian penalties for the possession, use and import of harder drugs, and the comprehensive reform of our broken immigration policies along the lines suggested by Senator John McCain would take our foreign policy towards Latin America off of a “War on Drugs” footing, enable us to focus on economic development and the reduction of trade barriers with Latin American countries and give U.S.-trained leaders a humane image in their home countries. To achieve these worthy ends, WHINSEC should be speedily closed.

Popularity: 8% [?]

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), also known as the School of the Americas (SOA) is a major United States endeavor to prevent the creation of hostile regimes in the Western Hemisphere, thereby improving the National Security of the United States. It is a classic example of a good idea and a noble goal that was poorly executed.

It is undeniable that a handful of the graduates of the School of the Americas took part in crimes against humanity. The school trained Special Forces and police of many Central and South American nations in an effort to give those nations the means to successfully prevent hostile or abusive regimes in the region. The manuals given to students, however, contained methods to control a population through fear, rewarding the death of enemy combatants with bounties and methods that could be (and were) used to torture the populace of those countries. These policies are abhorrent and were a mistake on the part of the United States, the Department of Defense and the graduates of SOA that used them. However, this is indicative of the need to change those policies, not of a need to abandon the entire plan. To that end, in 1992 the Department of Defense retracted the offensive manuals, officially declared them to be contrary to the policy of the United States and stopped teaching things that violated human rights.

The School of the Americas was created during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism to this hemisphere. This was consistent with the policy of the US government since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 declared that the US would not tolerate interference of European powers in the Western Hemisphere. Aiding and training friendly governments remains the policy of the US to this day. America and the Western Hemisphere is dramatically different today than it was in the Cold War, but the threats to freedom are no less significant and the needs of our allies are no less real. Venezuela, under the leadership of Hugo Chavez is moving ever closer to dictatorship status and it is influencing other governments to follow suit – Bolivia is a prime example under “President” Evo Morales. Venezuela has also threatened the security of a real democracy in the area in Columbia. Columbia is a good example of WHINSEC graduates appropriately using their training. The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia rebels (FARC), allegedly supported by Venezuela and the Drug Cartels, have been kept in check thanks to the training the Columbian military has received at SOA. Drug Cartels themselves have seen their power decrease markedly since the days of Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel’s army of mercenaries ruled half of Columbia, thanks in large part, to US training and assistance.

Closing the School of the Americas would be a grave mistake and would jeopardize the security of a region that more than ever needs to be able to protect itself. To be clear, SOA should not train its graduates to manipulate people through fear or to torture victims. However, it should provide true Democracies with a level of security available through a trained military, because the change in the world order has not removed the threat to freedom that continues to thrive where people are least able to protect themselves.

It is morally right and tactically sound to provide democracies committed to freedom with troops trained for excellence and imbedded with traditional values associated with Democracy and the US Military. No one can argue that the policies of SOA were abhorrent and demanded change. But if changes have been made and similar threats remain, abandoning the policy would be foolhardy and not in the best interests of the United States. The need for improvement is not grounds for the dismissal of a program. WHINSEC needed improvement, and it got it. It is probably true that there are many things that it could still do better, and if changes can be made to improve the end result created by SOA then let’s make them. No program in this country is perfect, nor is this country by any means perfect. The continual quest to better ourselves is a large part of what makes this country great, and it is a quintessential component to what it means to be an American. So let’s improve the SOA. Let’s teach not just skills and tactics, but values and decency. Let’s choose our allies with care and not out of fear or convenience. Ultimately, let us carry on the American tradition of continually seeking betterment and support the School of the Americas as a means to protect freedom and ensure the safety and security of this nation and our neighbors.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Marquette students should celebrate the government-funded bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and lately AIG. The bold and forceful action of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, acting as economic czar for the Bush administration, allows our parents to keep giving us money for a little while longer.

I will not deny that the ham-fisted policies of the Bush administration got the United States into this mess. But, as the Berenstein Bears said, “It’s never too late to correct a mistake.” The consequences of doing nothing – millions of students unable to repay their loans, scores of banks unable to redeem depositors’ withdrawals – can never be underestimated.

The more interesting question before financial markets is not “Why?” but “What next?” Economics students understand the concept of moral hazard. Fannie and Freddie last week and AIG this week got so big that the government had to bail them out or risk chaos. But the expectation of being bailed out if the water got too hot encouraged firms’ executives to place risky bets that failed shareholders and the public interest writ large. How the incoming Obama or McCain administration deals with the moral hazard topic will be one of their sternest economic policy tests. Stabilizing the plummeting value of the dollar in international currency markets is not far behind.

It runs counter to the Warrior’s core principles to have the federal government owning major lending and insurance companies, except in desperate moments when a ripple effect of failure could infect the global financial infrastructure, wiping out hard-working Americans’ life savings. Now that Uncle Sam has taken a heavy burden onto his shoulders, we need to demand transparent federal procedures for the rehabilitation of wounded and bankrupted firms. Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has suggested a second Resolution Trust Corporation (the agency that un-raveled the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s). Volcker’s plan is wise even though it raises the question, “Who will regulate the regulators?”
Philosophical speculations on these questions are necessary and important in the long term. Now, though, is time to act quickly.

The intricacies of financial markets may not touch the day-to-day lives of most Marquette students, but a financial panic leading into a systemic depression would certainly hurt all of us in the MU community. Prompt action by the federal government has averted this horror. As Halloween draws near, we hope that the horrors before us are limited to the make-believe world.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Congratulations. You have gotten a job, earned some money, paid some taxes and are now supporting hundreds of people who are living beyond their means. Recent events in the past few weeks have brought the long discussed ‘credit crises’ to a boiling point. The events of the past week clearly indicate a major reform and overhaul of Wall Street and the Investment Banking Industry;, it is not the taxpayers’ responsibility to bail out banks that took too large a risk in lending, or borrowers who took loans they cannot afford.

The sub-prime mortgages – loans made to people who can’t quite afford to repay them – have been bundled together and sold as asset backed securities in the form of CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and SIVs (Structured Investment Vehicles). Large investment banks have been turning a profit on these CDOs and SIVs for years because mortgages are a comparatively safe bet. Sure, a mortgage will fail here and there, but the equity in the loan and the value of the foreclosed asset ensures that losses are small and most people manage to avoid defaulting on their mortgages. The problem began when banks made poor lending decisions, offering loans to people who could not pay them back, banking on the fact that if they defaulted, the foreclosed home’s value would recoup the bank’s losses. The problems were compounded when, because of lacking regulation, they were able to bundle these sub-prime mortgages with prime mortgages and sell the whole lot of them in SIV’s and CDO’s rated as ‘AAA’ (The highest rating). No one can now tell how many bad loans are in the SIV’s in which they have invested. Imagine buying barrels of oil that you are told may contain a little bit of water – the catch is you won’t know how much water is in the barrel until you buy it and open it up. It could be 20% water, or it could be 80%, and there is no way to tell in advance, you just may end up with a worthless barrel of oil.

The problem continued when people began to default on the mortgages, driving up interest rates and abruptly halting the housing boom, lowering the value of homes as the supply of buyers evaporated. Now, the house the bank forecloses on and the equity in the loan is insufficient to cover the amount of the loan the bank initially made, and losses begin to pile up. The large investment banks around the world are now stuck with trillions of dollars in SIV’s that may not be worth the paper they are printed on. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae owned approximately half the mortgages (approximately $5,000,000,000,000) in the US and faced collapse if the government did not bail it out. If Freddie and Fannie did not get a bailout then the banks that made the initial loans would almost certainly fail, causing runs on banks and most likely a depression. The investment banks insured their investments with companies like AIG, who easily possessed the capital to shield the bank from the expected number of defaults but did not anticipate the immense number of claims they received, bringing it to the brink of collapse as well. Because the underwriting behind their investments is worthless, the bank is fully exposed to all of the losses and faces collapse.

What it all boils down to is that companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (public companies operating for profit) were allowed to take too much risk and hold the Federal Government hostage for a bailout because the alternative would be to risk a depression and catastrophic failure of the banking industry. The government has now used your money to cover the backsides of people who royally messed up and have escaped the normal market consequences of such a failure. It is illogical that the government should be responsible for the health of private financial institutions outside of its control. The government should get out of the loan guarantee business as soon as is now feasible and establish regulations that control the following: A.) create concrete lending guidelines to prevent sub-prime mortgages in the future. B.) Stop public funding for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It is a conflict of interest for a publically backed company to operate for profit and the government doesn’t belong in the industry. C.) Regulate the bundling of CDO’s and SIV’s so that the risk associated with each SIV is uniform and easily discernable. D.) Create guidelines for companies that established a ceiling for the risk institutions take if their survival is crucial to the well being of the United States. E.) After the situation is stabilized, stop making bailouts to non-essential businesses immediately and allow the market to right itself. F.) Hold accountable executives who make greedy decisions that undermine the US economy and screw their shareholders and fellow taxpayers.

You and I have many needs the government must help to provide: defense, education and affordable health care to name a few. Underwriting Joe Smith’s mortgage in Fargo, North Dakota and giving $85 Billion to an insurance company that underwrote more risk than it can afford is not something the government is obliged to do. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, you can be assured there will be inflation, higher taxes and a burden on you and your fellow Americans for years to come because of the events of the past couple years. It is time that companies faced the music for their decisions, and part of getting this second chance means making right what they did wrong in the first place. They should pay back the American people and the American people should not be saddled with their mistakes in the future.

Popularity: 8% [?]

ESTABLISHING THE DRINKING AGE AT 19 WILL KEEP ALCOHOL OUT OF HIGH SCHOOLS

The age old debate regarding the drinking age has once again appeared in the media over the last couple months. Many universities’ chancellors and presidents have recently signed the Amethyst Initiative, requesting a public debate on the drinking age.
In short, the universities feel the higher drinking age has failed to work and has instead created a dangerous environment that encourages binge drinking. Opponents to the initiative argue that high school drinking is down since the drinking age was changed to 21 in 1984 and that alcohol related fatalities, particularly on the road, among 18 to 20-year-olds have decreased.
When the legitimate pros and cons to both sides of this issue are weighed, a logical and feasible solution is to establish the drinking age at nineteen. Nineteen would preclude high school seniors from buying alcohol and thereby continue to restrict the availability of alcohol in high schools.
The vast majority of college freshmen choose to drink upon their arrival on campus regardless of the drinking age. Because underclassmen cannot legally drink, there is an underground, unregulated binge drinking movement that has been seen and noted by many education professionals across the country.
If the drinking age were set at nineteen, at some point during their first year away from home college freshmen could begin to drink openly and away from the pressure to drink to intoxication that is common in illicit drinking situations.
An 18-year-old is considered mature enough to make intelligent choices regarding elections and tobacco, and is permitted to join the military at great personal risk, so it seems absurd to say they are still too immature to drink responsibly.
Advertisements for alcohol products are everywhere. Given the consistent reinforcement of pro-alcohol messages, it is to be expected that young adults will want to drink. When they cannot drink openly until they are three years removed from their homes, opportunities to teach responsible drinking are missed completely and young adults arrive at college with no idea about tolerance levels or responsible drinking. If the drinking age were nineteen, seniors in high school could receive timely alcohol education courses similar to driver’s education offered shortly before students turn sixteen.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other organizations also argue that underage Driving Under the Influence (DUI) arrests are down. This is largely a separate issue – law enforcement has done an admirable job cracking down on drunk drivers.
Proper alcohol education in high schools could further attenuate DUI’s and being able to drink openly lends itself to being able to drink responsibly.
It’s much easier to arrange a ride or make plans to stay somewhere when someone can be open about the fact that they are going to be drinking. Considering the fact that most underage people choose to drink regardless of the law, it does not make sense that allowing them to do so openly would in turn promote illegal behavior.
Those who make the selfish decision to put others at risk by driving drunk will, unfortunately, probably continue to do so regardless of the drinking age. Proper education and more crackdowns seem to be much more sensible ways of combating drunk driving.
While there are legitimate concerns on both sides of the drinking age debate, the age of nineteen seems to be a logical compromise. It still effectively keeps high school students from purchasing alcohol and would allow parents and high schools to offer timely drinking education classes and advice.
Being able to drink openly would encourage respect for the law and allow young people to openly arrange for rides or places to stay to avoid driving drunk.
And perhaps most reasonably, if someone is judged fit to go into combat and choose the next president of our country, I certainly hope they can handle having a beer.

Popularity: 9% [?]

YES, 16- YEAR OLDS WILL LEARN TO DRINK MORE RESPONSIBLY

The legal drinking age in the United States, all things considered, should be 16. I’m neither off my rocker nor a paid spokesman for Miller Brewing Company. I mean it.
Almost everybody – even a government official or police officer as long as they are off-duty – agrees that the current national standard of 21 is a farce. It breeds disrespect for the law and legal order. It creates a culture of evasion, binge drinking and selective enforcement. It detracts from the educational mission of the United States’ best colleges and universities, Marquette among them. It encourages drunkenness and the use of cheap, inferior beers and spirits. In contrast, we should seek sophisticated appreciation of Wisconsin-brewed craft beers and fine wines from around the world.
More than 100 college presidents from across the United States have recognized that the 21-year-old standard is broken and have signed the Amethyst Initiative, a proposal to reduce the legal drinking age to 18. This initiative includes two
Jesuit universities, Santa Clara University and St. Joseph’s University.
This is laudable, but not far-reaching enough. As long as underage drinking is a “forbidden fruit”, it will never end. A legal drinking age of 18 will shift the problem of underage drinking from colleges to high schools. High school seniors being able to buy alcohol legally means freshman, sophomores and juniors will drink too.
I support a drinking age of 16 because 16-year-olds are far more likely than 18-year-olds or 21-year-olds to have a parent or responsible adult supervise their drinking. Readers who have studied and traveled abroad in Germany can testify that widespread social chaos does not happen with so low a drinking age.
“What about drinking and driving?” you might ask. Of course, it’s madness to allow 16-year-old rookie drivers to drink – and I agree! I propose a zero-tolerance policy for drinking and driving: all 16-to-21-year old drivers caught with any amount of alcohol in their system, even a 0.02, lose their license for 18 months, on the spot, no whining. The standard, at age 21, would be “relaxed” to existing drunk-driving laws at 0.08 on up.
All said a drinking age of 16 is an eminently sensible idea. Don’t you agree?

Popularity: 9% [?]

I served in Michigan State University’s student government as an undergraduate, and my duties included sitting in on certain Board of Trustees meetings. The setting was impressive – an oak-paneled conference room with giant oil paintings of past presidents leering down from the walls. Best of all, there was always free food – fruit trays, cheese and crackers (not the snack pack kind, but the good stuff you see at wedding receptions), candies, and the like. Bottles of water and mugs of coffee were also free. Here we were, undergraduates used to boiling Ramen noodles or eating inedible cafeteria food, seeing how the other half lives – with hors d’oeuvres pushed at them all the time.

Marquette students may not have an inalienable right to enjoy appetizers, but we do have a right to choose an effective, articulate representative at the highest levels of university decision-making. The best means to this end will be a permanent student seat on the University Leadership Council.

Having a student on Marquette’s Board of Trustees would be fun, but not useful. The Trustees consist of people who gave a lot of money to Marquette or went to Marquette and do something really cool, like Glenn A. “Doc” Rivers, or John F. Ferraro, Chief Operating Officer for the accounting firm Ernst and Young. The networking possibilities are endless – you treat Doc Rivers to an evening at Caffrey’s, and he treats you to courtside Celtics seats. Or you fly in John Ferraro to give a guest lecture to finance majors, and he invites you to dinner at the Four Seasons. But I jest.

Real decisions get made in the University Leadership Council, which includes 16 senior administrators and Marquette’s 12 university deans. This body could use a student member, if for nothing else, to break the dreaded tie vote. The most important criteria for the young woman or man who would represent students would be preparation for all items on the agenda, the ability to offer alternative policies as well as to complain and critique, and the deft hands required to smuggle the appetizers out of the Throne Room (or whatever palatial meeting place is used) it and into the hands of his or her hungry fellow-students.

This student would serve for two years, meaning that juniors would be standing for University Leadership Council membership in September. The two-year term would enable continuity, camaraderie and cohesion, instead of an endless parade of one-year appointees rotating in and out. The one-year term might be a good idea for our national Congress – the sooner we throw those bums out, the better – but durability in office for the student would build rapport with the more senior members. He or she would be seen as an asset, not an annoyance.

Ideally, this student would be a Trustee-in-the-making. None of us have boatloads of money to give the university, but some of us have done really cool things already – like Jason Rae, Marquette’s superdelegate to the most contentious Democratic National Convention in recent memory; or Pat Landry, whose tireless work on the Hunger Clean-Up and various Catholic-minded service events deserves our applause. Our University Leadership Council representative would have already proven his or her ability to think outside the box and act outside the norm for the good of our Marquette community and the greater glory of God.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The Board of Trustees is Marquette’s overarching, governing body. The idea of it having a student member, no matter how interesting that may be, is simply not wise.

Where to begin? For starters, whether we like it or not, Marquette is in fact…a business. Normally, businesses only directly affect investors or those employed by them. Colleges are unique, because a third party is involved: students. If the local grocery store goes bankrupt, consumers have the option of going to the next store down the road. In the rare event of a college going kaput, students, numbering in the thousands, are left with the short end of the stick. Will their credits transfer? Will another college accept them? Will they need to start over?

I’m not naïve enough to actually believe that a student member on the board could single-handedly destroy Marquette, but this extreme example should illustrate how important the decisions are that are made by the board.

With enough bad decisions, Marquette’s reputation could be destroyed in a much shorter time than it takes to agonizingly rebuild it. It is the Board of Trustees’ duty, for the sake of thousands of people on campus and the hundreds of thousands of alumni abroad, to make the best decisions for the sake of the greatest good. This includes such “bad” decisions as the one to become the Marquette Gold. Members of the Board realized that they had opened Pandora’s Box by suggesting a nickname change. The overwhelming majority of students and alumni favored a return of the Warriors, but today’s politically correct focused society would never allow Willie Wampum to come back. A third, unseen choice seemed the best course of action at the time.

A student member of the board, even in a non-voting capacity, would have added nothing to the debate. Student sentiment was already known because of a survey issued to the Marquette community earlier that year. Perhaps a focus group on possibly becoming the Marquette Gold would have been wise, but no doubt information would have leaked and the surprise would have been blown.

Contrary to popular belief, people who make decisions like becoming the Gold know that they will be unpopular, but they are made anyway because it is the right thing to do (analogous to President Truman firing General MacArthur). Additionally, turning points such as this require solidarity. Was anyone else suspicious when it was announced that the Board’s decision to become the Gold was unanimous? It is unknown to students what was actually said in the meetings leading up to that decision, but I can only imagine that the debate was fierce. Regardless of the outcome, the decision had to be unanimous. If the report issued to students stated that there was a lone dissenter, the press would have hounded that individual, and torn apart a “solid” decision by the Board. Granted, they did that anyway, but it would have been worse if one or two people had voted, “No.”

I say all this to set up the question: if you were on the board, would you be able to swallow your pride and vote for the greater good? You may say yes, but really mean no. Students lack the necessary maturity and experience to know when to give up fighting for what they want in order to facilitate the common good. This is why business leaders and other adults with real world experience are chosen to be on the board. Besides, how many students do you know who can make a million dollar donation?

Popularity: 14% [?]

Last spring, former Attorney General John Ashcroft came and spoke on Marquette’s campus. In the speech he addressed a variety of different issues, but one of his primary focuses was the Patriot Act and, in particular, wiretaps. Ashcroft believes that wiretaps do not destroy freedom but foster it. Opponents of wiretaps believe the government is invading our privacy, making it possible for corrupt officials to take advantage of innocent citizens.

These opponents think wiretaps could be used to create a society similar to the one depicted in George Orwell’s “1984,” where big brother is constantly monitoring you, listening to your phone calls, looking for any reason to throw you into prison. This fear is certainly legitimate and definitely needs to be considered.

But many of these fears are propagated by paranoid individuals who believe that the government is simply trying to take away their freedom. The reality of the program is quite different. In the majority of cases, a warrant is needed in order to tap the phone lines, but following September 11th congress legalized warrantless wiretaps. This law has been challenged by many individuals and organizations like the ACLU but has been found to be constitutional by the Supreme Court.

The ACLU believes that the law is unconstitutional because it allows the government to invade our privacy. This concern is overblown. These taps are not used to monitor conversations amongst college students discussing their plans for the weekend, but instead listen to intercepts where the government “has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda,” and that one party to the conversation is “outside of the United States.”

Many people believe this program is brand new, created by President Bush. This is not the case; warrantless wiretaps have their roots all the way back to the 1980s. In the 80s, drug lords learned that if they switched telephones, the FBI would have to get a new court order to listen to that new phone. This made it impossible for the FBI to monitor and detain these criminals. In order to assist the FBI, the government made it possible for the FBI to monitor any phone used by a particular individual. This was called the Roving Wiretap. The Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps merely enlarged this authority to terrorism.

Many of us have not seen the fruits of the information received from these wiretaps, causing us to believe them to be unnecessary and even hurtful. But this information has actually made our country safer. It allows intelligence gatherers to quickly “connect the dots” and act to stop another terrorist attack. Clearly this has been effective; there has been no terrorist attack in America since September 11th.

Opponents will continue to argue that while America is safer, the cost of these security measures on our civil liberties is too high. I believe Ashcroft’s analysis of legislation is the best counter to this argument: “If passing a law increases freedom then it should be passed, if it reduces freedom then it should not be.” If a terrorist attack occurs in the United States, it immediately destroys the freedom of the individuals involved in the attack. Many will be killed, others will be severely injured and the rest of the country may feel so unsafe that they will be unable to go about their daily routine. Wiretaps stop these attacks from happening, thereby increasing our freedom.

Popularity: 11% [?]

One of my (over-21) colleagues on the Warrior told me, “The only thing that we should tap is a keg of beer.” The recent hullabaloo about the 2007 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court ruling that forbade the National Security Agency (NSA) from wiretapping on U.S. commercial telecoms networks is a bunch of political hot air. Since the Protect America Act (a temporary legal authorization for the NSA to intercept communications at will) expired last month, the United States has been just as safe and secure than before it expired.

The real issue underlying wiretapping is whether the Fourth Amendment is the supreme law of the land or a useless piece of parchment. The text of the Fourth Amendment states: “… no warrants shall issue, except upon probable cause,” which has meant, in American legal precedent, probable cause that a crime is being planned or is in progress. FISA sets a different standard: anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, or who is suspected of acting as an agent of a foreign country, is subject to warrantless searchs. In this era of globalization, do we want to deter international businesspeople from doing legal commerce in the United States, knowing their conversations are open to federal surveillance? I think not. Do we want to trust bureaucrats in the National Security Agency to determine that we should be spied on because we got a job with a non-U.S. based company? I dare not.

I acknowledge that not everybody will be convinced by the literal words of our Constitution. Yet it seems that the debate about warrantless wiretapping is much like the debate about immigration policy: some politicians and people are so fixated, Elliot Ness-style, on “keeping the bad guys out” that they are preventing the far greater number of skilled men and women from getting in. Some people are so fixated on listening in to the single phone call that will prevent a disastrous terrorist attack that they are willing to accept unlimited government power to listen in on their conversations.

Terrorists that are smart enough to have any real power to hurt do not use open telecoms networks or e-mails to convey information. They might have a code in which “Lower your flags and march straight back to England!” means, “Do this”, but such a code supposes people have met first. The result is idle government bureaucrats wasting their time and public money listening in to everyday conversations. I have learned that my talks with a friend who recently finished her Peace Corps service in Ukraine were monitored by both Ukrainian and American intelligence, which is laughable and sad.

Likewise, in a world where businesses can easily relocate, business that has a legitimate privacy interest is likely to flow away from the United States into foreign countries. Privacy is an essential element of maintaining trade secrets, patents, and other competitive advantages. Privacy arguably is just as essential for corporations as it is for persons.

“My job is a decision-making job,” said President Bush in October 2007, “and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.” For now, he has decided to ask for immunity for major telecoms carriers like AT&T and Verizon, who face civil lawsuits for their role in carrying out the government’s bidding. This is a terrible idea, as our own Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wisconsin) has indicated in USA Today: “Retroactive immunity set the terrible precedent that breaking the law is permissible and companies need not worry about the privacy of their customers.”

Popularity: 10% [?]