Clinton’s Domestic Surveillance Policy: Duplicitously Neocon As It Ever Was

The Guardian has a story out today outlining--to the extent that the Clinton campaign would do so--what the ex-Secretary of State would do vis a vis national security policy if she becomes the next occupant of the Oval Office. For those concerned with our out-of-control, post-9/11 Surveillance State, these three paragraphs should give you pause:

Domestically, the “principles” of Clinton’s intelligence surge, according to senior campaign advisers, indicate a preference for targeted spying over bulk data collection, expanding local law enforcement’s access to intelligence and enlisting tech companies to aid in thwarting extremism. 

The campaign speaks of “balancing acts” between civil liberties and security, a departure from both liberal and conservative arguments that tend to diminish conflict between the two priorities. Asked to illustrate what Clinton means by “appropriate safeguards” that need to apply to intelligence collection in the US, the campaign holds out a 2015 reform that split the civil liberties community as a model for any new constraints on intelligence authorities. 

The USA Freedom Act, a compromise that constrained but did not entirely end bulk phone records collection, “strikes the right balance”, Rosenberger said. “So those kinds of principles and protections offer something of a guideline for where any new proposals she put forth would be likely to fall.”

In fact, as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) noted during the GOP primaries, the USA Freedom Act increased the amount of information on Americans the NSA and FBI are vacuuming up electronically. Apparently, Clinton is just fine with that completely ineffective, taxpayer money-wasting, and constitutionally dubious mass surveillance program. 

And if you are a member of the Arab- or Muslim-American community, this paragraph from the Guardian story should send chills down your spine:

Now, Clinton and her advisers are studying whether and how law enforcement agencies ought to balance the privacy and security questions which arise: should agencies share information with each other on those preliminarily under terrorism suspicion, while attempting to avoid keeping such people under permanent investigation or alienating Muslim and other communities.

In fact, this kind of activity has been underway for months via the FBI's notorious "Shared Responsibility Committees"--and the included non-disclosure agreement language in the SRC "participant agreement" letter is as odious as one could imagine. It follows the launch earlier this year of the FBI's de facto anti-Muslim "Don't Be A Puppet" website. 

Clinton has spent much of the post-convention campaign season excoriating Trump for his anti-Muslim language and proposals. He richly deserves the criticism. But Trump at least appears to be honest about the kind of unconstitutional surveillance and political repression he would likely try to perpetrate against Arabs and Muslims, whether its targeting those who already live here or those who would like to come here to escape a war-torn Middle East. Clinton is telling Arab- and Muslim-Americans how our government should not be persecuting members of their community while endorsing federal surveillance and related programs that do precisely that.