FBI Director Wants Everyone to Leave Backdoors Unlocked so He Can Search at Will

The director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, has called for technology companies to build 'backdoors' into their encryption systems so that the US Government can access anyone's digital communications. The most obvious flaw in his plan, as outlined in this article, is that any backdoor created for the US intelligence agencies can also be exploited by America's enemies. The vulnerability of US Government systems to hackers has been repeatedly proven, most recently with the hacking of the US Office of Personnel Management in which the confidential records of 21.5 million people who had been required to go through background checks for US government jobs were stolen, probably by the Chinese Government.

The naïveté of Comey's intentions is secondary, however, to the more important considerations of which he appears to be ignorant. It seems almost quaint to discuss the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, given how utterly those documents have been philosophically shredded in recent decades, however the Fourth Amendment states that,

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It is pretty unambiguous, isn't it? What part of that statement says that the US Government can require everyone to leave the digital equivalent of the backdoors of their houses unlocked so that one of its agencies can enter and search at will? Even the US Supreme Court, which has been only too willing to ignore James Madison's plain English and allow all sorts of unwarranted searches and seizures in recent decades, has to its credit upheld the rights of the people in respect of smartphones searches in two recent cases.

James Madison and many of his contemporaries originally thought that the powers granted to the Federal Government in the original seven articles of the US Constitution were implicitly limited, but they came to realise that the reverse was true. They understood that government power and individual rights were inherently in conflict and that for citizens to be sovereign (which is the most fundamental tenet of the US Declaration of Independence), government powers had to be explicitly limited. This is why the Bill of Rights was written.

James Comey believes the opposite to James Madison. The former believes the citizenry lives at the pleasure of the government and that therefore it is the right of the government to know everything about each and every one of its citizens, irrespective of whether there is reasonable cause to believe that a citizen has committed a crime. In James Comey's eyes, we are all guilty until proven innocent. This is why his view is so fundamentally wrong. It is why James Comey and his type that are the greatest threat to liberty today, rather than the threats from the likes of terrorist groups like ISIS that he uses to justify his demands for ever-greater power over our lives.

America - Land of the Closely Scrutinised

It has been interesting watching the contortions of the mainstream media over the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald about the illegal activities of the US National Security Agency and Justice Department.  In some ways I don't envy the left-leaning media their dilemma - who is right, the President who is everything they always wanted (left-wing, black and so cool he needs to be kept in a refrigerator) or Greenwald, who has impeccable credentials (gay, Guardian, ex-civil rights litigator) as one of their own?  Who should they defend - the symbol of their left-wing liberalism in the Oval Office or the only journalist upholding the principles they have always professed to defend such as freedom of speech and conscience?  The very fact that they are caught in this dilemma suggest to me that they were never serious about their principles in the first place.

I have read numerous articles and blogs coming from all sides of the political spectrum attempting to justify the illegal spying by the Obama administration on its own citizens.  The gist of the argument in favour of the government breaking the law is that it is necessary for the security of the nation.  Of course, every dictator since Sulla has used the same argument to garner to themselves excessive and unconstitutional powers and it has never ended well for the people.  Let's be clear, President Obama has been the worst offender in this regard and far worse than his predecessor, George W. Bush.  At least Bush sought a legislative mandate in the likes of the Patriot Act for the expansion of his powers.  The Obama administration has simply disregarded the need for any legislative or constitutional mandate for what it is doing, although it has used the law when it suits it, launching more prosecutions for espionage against whistle blowers than all previous administrations (the charges against Snowden are the seventh and there have been only three other such prosecutions in US history).

The US Constitution enshrines the principles of freedom of speech, privacy and due process precisely because its authors believed that future US presidents might do exactly what Obama has done.  Its drafters saw no situation where the abrogation of these principles was justified (except in the specific instances detailed in the Bill of Rights itself).  Take the Fourth Amendment, which says:

    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It couldn't be clearer.  The US Government cannot legally search or seize someone's papers (and any reasonable modern interpretation of "papers" must include email) without a warrant that is issued upon probable cause.  That means the government must have evidence against a specific person, place or thing it wants to search or seize.  Even the broadest interpretation of this cannot include the seizing of information about every American's telephone calls.

The framers of the US Constitution got it right.  They knew what was required if the Constitution was to preserve any semblance of liberty.  They enshrined these principles to ensure freedom survived the propensity of governments towards tyranny.  In my view, the assault on the Constitution by the current US Government is a far greater threat that any terrorist or other threat that has been used to justify these illegal and unconstitutional acts. 

Americans can no longer expose the excesses of their government or even express a dissenting opinion for fear of being targeted by agencies such as the IRS, which was recently exposed as having used its powers to illegally harass political groups that oppose the Obama administration such as the Tea Party. 

Unfortunately, the judicial oversight of the Executive Branch become a joke.  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ("FISA") Court, which is meant to oversee the issuing of warrants in regards to national security matters, has rejected just 11 of more than 33,000 applications for warrants in its 35 year existence and the US Supreme Court has become so politically loaded it has ceased to be any form of guardian for constitutional rights.

All this has meant that America is no longer the land of the free, but rather a land where people are so closely watched by government agencies whose methods and mandate would make former East German Stasi officers envious. 

The media should not be debating whether unconstitutional acts are justified, they should be arguing how those who have abrogated the Constitution should be brought to justice.