Edward Snowden’s revelations about the U.S. government’s unconstitutional spying on American citizens shocked the world. As national efforts to reign in the out-of-control surveillance state have stalled after some paltry, weak reforms, North Carolina’s state government should take concrete action to strike back at federal overreach into our private lives and signal hostility to spying on Americans.
A brief overview: Despite the distortions of NSA representatives otherwise, the FBI has established that dragnet NSA spying (which taxpayers funded on the order of billions) had not been instrumental in stopping one single imminent terror plot. However, the NSA, the same agency that harangued and harassed Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s, has used metadata records to create dossiers on critical journalists, help law enforcement manufacture probable cause in criminal investigations, collect the communications of United States Representatives and view the nude pictures unfortunate young women caught in the NSA’s crosshairs had stored on their cell phones.
National discussion on the matter has seemingly slowed after the passage of the misnamed and milquetoast USA Freedom Act, which merely added one small inconvenience to the machinations of federal spies.
In the absence of serious national reform, North Carolina’s current government should be true to its self-proclaimed constitutionalist and limited government bona fides and take concrete action against government snooping. Even a resolution condemning the practice, as has been introduced and passed in several other states, would gain traction and attention for the cause of the constitutional right to privacy.
The state could also prohibit state resources being used to further NSA spying, which North Carolina is well within its rights to do. Any future federal spying facility that sets up shop in North Carolina should not have the convenience of using water, electrical or other utilities funded by N.C. taxpayers.
The General Assembly should further signal that NSA spying is unacceptable by penalizing universities that form partnerships with the rogue agency, which N.C. State has unfortunately done. Every dollar accepted from the NSA should be met with a matching cut in state resources, to discourage the proliferation of the rogue, extraconstitutional agency and to handicap it sucking up young North Carolina talent for its own ends. University administrations should refuse such partnerships on principle.
The Obama administration, originally elected promising transparency and reform, has been hostile to whistleblowers and privacy advocates. If the next president is some wannabe tyrant or a career crook, the potential for even more serious abuse of the surveillance apparatus is immense, and North Carolina should take steps to prevent such misconduct. That blanket government spying on law-abiding Americans is unacceptable should be common sense to anyone with a modicum of respect for civil liberties.
If our federal representatives lack the courage and conviction to reform the tentacular surveillance state, the states should take strong action to preserve our constitutional republic.
