Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist who forged the “communitarian” movement two decades ago, reveals the bankruptcy of that view when it comes to civil liberties when he defends the government being able to track us on our cell phones and with GPS units without a warrant.
The Supreme Court is shortly hearing a legal challenge to this authority and Etzioni does what authoritarians always do in such situations — invokes a fictional boogeyman that must be stopped.
According to national statistics for 2010, less than half (47%) of violent crimes committed in this country are “cleared” (that is, suspects are arrested, charged, and turned over for prosecution) and only one out of five (18%) criminals who commit nonviolent crimes (such as burglary) are caught and tried. For obvious reasons there are no such statistics available for terrorists, and the fact that there was no successful attack in the U.S. over the past 10 years tends to make us complacent.
Oh, of course. We’ve become complacent about stopping terrorism. That’s why Congress has repeatedly extended the Patriot Act, given total immunity to telecom companies and pretty much shredded the 4th amendment. It’s why the NSA can now record pretty much every phone call, email and text message made by anyone to anyone in the entire country without a warrant and the public doesn’t seem to give a shit. It’s why we’ve spent a couple trillion dollars or more on the war on terror. Because we’re too complacent. What freaking world does this guy live in?
And speaking of the 4th amendment, listen to this idiotic argument:
To argue that the preceding data show that the government should be given some more leeway is not a violation of the Constitution, but directly sanctioned by it. Unlike the First Amendment, which is worded in absolute terms — “Congress shall make NO law” — the Fourth Amendment bans only unreasonable searches. That is, it recognizes that there is a whole category of searches that are fully legitimate and violate no one’s rights.
Of course it recognizes that some searches are legitimate. It couldn’t possibly be otherwise. But it sets up a very clear standard for when the government can engage in a search — when they show probable cause and get a warrant. The fact that there is a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate searches is irrelevant; the fact that the 4th amendment prescribes a safeguard to define that difference is what matters. But Etzioni wants to do away with that safeguard here.
So pray tell, how will we know that this power is only being used for terrorist suspects? We know that the use of sneak and peek warrants, which were also sold to us as an important weapon in the fight against terrorism, has been almost exclusively used for non-terrorism investigations. Less than 1% of the time they are used in terrorism investigations; 99% of the time they’re used on drug cases.
As to what is reasonable, it obviously changes with the circumstances. Given that criminals can use freely all the new technologies — including of course GPS trackers, smartphones and spyware — it seems eminently reasonable that the police should also be able to use some of these, especially in public spaces, in which people have no expectation of privacy (or at least should not have one).
Um. No. Criminals can’t use GPS to track people or put spyware on their computer without breaking the law. The solution to that is not to give the government the authority to break the law.
And Etzioni says we should give them this authority as long as the promise to use their powers only for good:
If the police put GPS devices in all the cars on the road, or even only in one out of every thousand, cops would be buried under an endless flood of data points — among which suspects would be lost.
At the same time, the police should be required to file reports after the fact about their use of GPS trackers. If it turns out that they are employed too often or to track people who are, say, political activists, the police should be reprimanded and if they persist, elected officials (say, a city council) should set limits on the use of this and other crime-fighting technologies and punish those who abuse them.
No, no, no. City councils don’t have anything to do with this, it’s a federal constitutional issue. And no, I don’t want to see reports after the fact. I want to see evidence presented before the fact to establish that the use of that technology is justified. That is what the 4th amendment rightly demands.
Someone tell me again why this buffoon is taken seriously.
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precaf
November 18, 2011 at 3:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He has a regular column in the National Interest, where he expands on this theme:
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/defense-the-patriot-act-6102
It’s actually worse than the CNN article you deconstruct.
theguy
November 18, 2011 at 4:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
From what I’ve read about communitarians, they seem to be socially conservative while economically left wing. From the excerpt from Etzioni, it sounds as though just his social views are the source of his authoritarianism.
Given that my economic views are center-left, I feel compelled to point out a difference between him and me.
“less than half (47%) of violent crimes committed in this country are “cleared” (that is, suspects are arrested, charged, and turned over for prosecution) and only one out of five (18%) criminals who commit nonviolent crimes (such as burglary) are caught and tried.”
So, in his view, this isn’t a reason to increase police funding, or maybe train more officers, but instead it’s reason to give them near-police-state powers.
“Given that criminals can use freely all the new technologies… it seems eminently reasonable that the police should also be able to use some of these”
Imagine that argument taken to its logical extreme. “Criminals can just randomly pop a cap in someone’s ass; why not the police?”
eric
November 18, 2011 at 4:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What this bonehead doesn’t realize is that that is exactly where we are. We gave the FBI expanded powers. They did abuse it (see Ed’s comment on sneek & peek). And now we are calling for limits.
A real translation of his belief probably goes something like this: I’m okay with them illegally monitoring other people, until they use it against me personally. Then I’ll complain they’ve overreached.
kermit.
November 18, 2011 at 6:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Really, a video camera in a public arena is just like a witness that you didn’t happen to notice, right? And being able to use software to tie together videos taken by cameras in a city following a line of movement of a criminal (or a GPS on her car) is just like a few hundred cops stationed every ten meters or so, all taking notes and pictures to compare later. And they really would only be interested in doing this for actual criminals, or at most people they didn’t like, or perhaps seeking some crime which they didn’t know about.
Did I mention the handheld radar guns that can see moving human images through walls?
And the NSA tracking all traffic thru the internet in the US and Chthulu knows where else. It would take computers much smarter than mine to be able to sort thru those for patterns of
images or key words or connections between people and sites.
Just don’t do anything interesting, citizen – ever – and you will have nothing to worry about. And don’t look so surly, or I’ll think something is wrong.
jakc
November 18, 2011 at 7:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This country was founded by armed smugglers intent on avoiding taxes; they meant for the 4th Amendment to mean something – including most likely to prevent warrantless searches of vehicles. It is NOT an accident that the 4th Amendment allows criminals to evade arrest. That is the very purpose of the 4th Amendment.
adamleuer
November 19, 2011 at 3:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Whoah hold on. So there is such a thing as communitarianism? And there are people that actually identify with it? I had always just assumed it was a term invented by my undergrad poli sci professor so she could have something to put in her little chart illustrating the four sides of the political spectrum (where the other three were liberalism, conservatism and libertarianism). I never imagined any reasonable, self-aware person would possibly think communitarianism was a good idea. I mean, you’d have to be a complete tool…
lpetrich
November 20, 2011 at 10:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I remember from the heyday of communitarianism that there were lots of communitarian leaders but no communitarian rank-and-file members. Which says something about that movement.