Rand makes a compelling case in The Scope of Collateral Damage discussed at Collateral Damage for Whom? that good intelligence can save lives. The questions I want to address is, “How much does it cost to save those lives in terms of liberty?” Left unaddressed will be “How do we define ‘good intelligence’ so the benefits outweigh the cost?”
We decided not too long ago that butter knives and toenail clippers in an airplane have more benefits and costs avoided than the security value of blocking them. The calculus was that the time and annoyance of the security procedures combined with the slight indignities of plastic silverware and long toe nails outweighed the slight increase in security from not having them.
For roving wiretaps on our enemies who may talk to US citizens we may get valuable information to stop an attack. We may abuse the wiretaps to gather information on domestic political opponents. Who gets to designate who is an enemy?
A start to protect civil liberties would be to bar information gathered in warrantless searches from being used as evidence in a criminal prosecution. But it may still be too much power to concentrate into the hands of the executive branch.
Millions of people die in the United States every year. Al Qaeda action is not yet a leading cause of death in the US. Our war was triggered more by the novelty of the attack than its threat to national security. The flu kills 36,000. Heart attack many times more. Those deaths don’t rankle as much because they are common and expected.
It is not necessary to use unusual counterespionage techniques in this war to win it. There may be a cost in blood of both US soldiers and the Iraqis and Afghanis we have dragged into our struggle if we insist on keeping to pristine methods of intelligence gathering at home.
The lost liberty in the event we embrace the blurred lines between domestic and foreign spying may be far more costly than the lives that can be saved by prompt intelligence. If we embrace wiretaps, it is a step on the road toward any means necessary.
Patrick Henry said, “Give me Liberty or give me death.” The soldiers in the Revolutionary war were prepared to die at a time when life was viewed much more cheaply. Now life is so dear that matters of war and peace turn on atrocities and combat deaths that kill far fewer than infant mortality (62500 or 50% of births at about 50 per thousand) in an America that had less than 1% as many people as it does today (2.5 million vs 300 million).
But let us not elevate the value of life so highly that we empower an unchecked executive to use war powers such as espionage on citizens. That is a step toward the tyranny that eighteenth century Americans died to vanquish. Perhaps we should be willing to give up a few of our much more dear lives as the price to pay for continuing liberty.