Detentions and Drones

To paraphrase the concerns of other civil libertarians: "There are two explosions when a terrorist attacks.  The first explosion takes lives.  The second explosion takes our liberties."  I am pleased to see that the voices advocating water boarding have been marginalized by the greater recognition that we compromise most of the high ground by engaging in that practice.  On this point the administration has aligned itself with that recognition, but it is failing to demonstrate that kind of recognition in the following respects.  This administration appears to have chosen a policy of drone assassinations in order to avoid the messy legal implications of taking prisoners.  A policy that has increased collateral damage and further aided the efforts of those who seek to recruit members to engage in terror.   That policy of assassination has not been concerned about the difference between those who engage in conspiracy to commit terror and those who are loosely affiliated with them, or merely unfortunate enough to be related to them as a family member.  Drone attacks have taken the lives of 176 children in Pakistan alone, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.  This administration also continues the practice of rendition involving secret arrests, and the detention of suspects in foreign prisons.  It has signed the National Defense Authorization Act which allows American citizens to be detained indefinitely with out legal recourse.  I used to find indefinite detention without trial reprehensible regardless of what country the detainee was from, and now we see the natural extension of that logic to subject American citizens to this same practice.  A recent development in the wake of the Boston Marathon attack is that Facebook and Google may be required to change the structure of their sites to allow the FBI and other agencies to wiretap in real time.  If these agencies could get a warrant to wiretap these conversations, they could get one to perform a search of a suspected terrorist's property.  That sort of warrant would have turned up the evidence necessary to stop the horrific attack in Boston.  I don't see how requiring these web sites to augment their infrastructure so that they are complicit with an invasion of privacy would have done any better.  By this reasoning we should get rid of the anonymity provided by our currency because it could allow terrorists to conceal purchases they make.  This list of infractions to our privacy, access to legal recourse, and other liberties is growing.  There is something in here for everyone.  If you aren't disturbed yet, at this pace you won't have long to wait before you are.  Liberal criticism of Obama on this front has been too quiet and those who are concerned about what is happening to our privacy and liberty need to hold him accountable.  There is the potential for a large coalition to apply pressure if concerned liberals are willing to work with libertarians, despite disagreement over a range of other issues.  However much I may agree with the president's agenda on a wide array of domestic issues, I won't sit quietly while American citizens and others are denied any legal recourse to their indefinite detention.