Bob Franken: Defending Against Our Defenders

Oct 28, 20150

Leave it to the Secret Service to demonstrate conclusively that secret information isn't secret. The elite force also has been proving of late that it isn't all that elite, what with fence-jumpers and drunk agents crashing into security barriers at the White House, to say nothing of operatives hooking up with hookers when they're on the road protecting POTUS.

When Congress had the temerity to investigate the embarrassments, a huge number of people in this Keystone Kop force decided that it was time to take vindictive action. They focused their malice on Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee that, uh, oversees government agencies, like the Secret Service. Chaffetz even had the audacity to criticize the Secret Service -- which, given its klutzy behavior, didn't seem all that bold.

Apparently it did seem that way to the people in the secret bunkers. According to an inspector general report, they decided it was time to humiliate the congressman, time to teach him a lesson. This went as high as Assistant Director Edward Lowery, who wrote an email that made it clear he favored the idea of leaking confidential dossiers about Chaffetz that were legally supposed to remain private. "Some information," Lowery wrote, "that he might find embarrassing needs to get out."

By the way, that "embarrassing" stuff was a file showing that in 2003, Chaffetz had applied to the Secret Service and hadn't gotten the job. Why that would be so mortifying escapes me, but that's beside the point. Secret Service officials, higher-ups, as well as rank-and-file, seriously abused their power. Even worse, this actually points to a much bigger problem.

In the name of national security or law enforcement, officials have been taking away our civil rights in chunks. When they get caught electronically spying, when they're exposed for putting the lives of the entire public under surveillance, they respond that we have to trust them not to misuse the ill-gotten information. In the case of the National Security Agency sweeps, it turns out that a few operatives were using the covert intelligence to check on the love lives of people they knew. Audits have shown that there were thousands of cases where legal restraints were ignored and mistakes made.

Thanks to smartphones, we see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police violently overstepping their authority, often with deadly results. The videos have forced normally reluctant higher-ups to act against their bullies in uniform, the ones who make life more dangerous for innocent people just going about their lives.

At the very same time, however, they seek to push the envelope with technology that makes it easier to track down lawbreakers' every move. The problem is that they also can violate the rights of the millions of law-abiding citizens with their indiscriminate sweeps. They can stomp on a wide range of legal protections that are supposed to set the nation apart from police states.

Of course we need law enforcement; we also need effective intelligence. It's a dangerous world at home and abroad. But what we too often discover is that we need protections from our protectors. The argument that we can save freedom only by taking it away is ridiculous.

(Bob Franken is a syndicated columnist.)

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