Easiest path isn’t always the right one

So I read in the news today that the National Security Agency says the citizen-spying program has helped thwart “dozens” of attacks and helped keep us all safe.

Well, that’s nice, and I have some friends who say they don’t mind (not many, mind you, but a few) that the government is eavesdropping on our phones, hacking our emails and whatever else in order to “keep us safe.” I think the most common phrase I see is, “I’ve got nothing to hide, so I don’t care.” Well, OK. But why stop there?

In the spirit of “protecting” us and maintaining “freedom,” I propose the following:

1. All homes must have cameras installed, complete with microphones. In this way our wonderful saviors in the government can make sure that nobody is plotting against us, making bombs or otherwise setting out to harm us

2. All cars must also have onboard cameras and built-in kill switches that can be used by the police. They must also be equipped with GPS so you can be tracked (this is already coming true, by the way). And since all the tech is there anyway, might as well set them so it’s impossible to go over the posted speed limit. Or perhaps it sends an alert to the police when you do so and a computer-generated ticket can be sent to you in the mail.

3. Warrants will no longer be required to enter your car, home or wherever. In this way, they can immediately determine whether or not somebody represents a threat without having to wait for that bothersome judge to make a decision.

4. Cameras shall be installed on light poles, buildings, trees and as many other places as possible in order to monitor the public for any suspicious behavior. More tax dollars shall be allocated for creating small drones with the ability to hover that can flit around cities and keep an eye on us.

5. Guns shall be banned from the civilian public; only military and law enforcement would be allowed guns.

6. The government will push a public relations campaign to carefully listen and pay attention to what your co-workers and neighbors say. Anything that sounds as though it could possibly be against the country or our government shall be immediately reported to a special hotline. Children will be taught in schools what to listen for when their parents are talking and the rewards for telling somebody at the school if mommy or daddy said something anti-American.

7. It goes without saying that your emails and Internet are closely monitored. Websites that may allow or encourage anything un-American (as determined by the government) shall now be blocked.

8. Everybody will be authorized a specific city, county or other zone they are allowed to travel in according to where they work and live. Traveling outside this zone shall require permission and the proper paperwork when traveling through the checkpoints or when asked by a member of law enforcement.

Now then, you can’t tell me that those of you with “nothing to hide” and that we need to “do whatever it takes” wouldn’t find this to be a paradise, right? Just think how safe we’d all be! How much more difficult it would be for in-house terrorists to commit heinous acts against us! How hard it would be for anti-American would-be terrorists to enter and travel about the country! So what if taking the family to the Grand Canyon now requires a trip to the Department of American Activities to apply for a six-day pass to travel along the approved, designated route (make sure you check in to the local department office when you get there). It’s all just a small price to pay for “freedom,” right?

I can already hear it, “Oh brother, aren’t you paranoid. Our country would never come to that.”

Really? Imagine going back in time and telling somebody in 1950 or 1960 that by 2013, we’ll live in a country where your phone calls are listened to by the government, where your messages to friends and family are intercepted and read by the government. What do you think they’d say? “Oh how silly. Not in our country. We’re the USA and we’d never do that!”

This is how it happens, folks, in small steps. Inch by inch we lose a little of our privacy, we sacrifice a little freedom here or there and we get used to it. After awhile, it doesn’t feel so preposterous. Then, we lose a little more. And so on, and so on down the slippery slope.

Next thing you know, you’re living in a country like the one I described above wondering, “Wait a minute, how did we get here?”

It’s called complacency, and the people I especially worry about are the ones who say or think, “Well, it’s OK to just give them a little, because I know and trust it won’t go any farther than this.”

Wanna bet?

I think that as Americans we perhaps suffer from a bit of arrogance wherein we think, for whatever reason, that we are smarter than the people living in every other country on the planet. Do you think the Russians in 1917 were all stupid? Do you think they were so dumb as they brought in Lenin, Stalin and pals that they knew what they were getting into? How about Germany in 1936? China? North Korea? Cuba? Venezuela? All are perfect examples of an oppressive government brought into power by people applauding and cheering, expecting peace, prosperity and, yes, freedom. All they had to do was “give a little here or there” to achieve some security.

How’d that work out?

A friend of mine asked what my solution would be. My answer? I don’t know. If I did, I’d be a rich man. But here is what I do know; the easiest path isn’t always the right one. Sure, spying on all of us is doable (obviously) and with modern technology, actually pretty easy. But I bet the country that can put men in space, build the world’s highest-tech military equipment, invent Windows and a million other examples of innovation can come up with a better way. It can be done.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.