Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Lincoln's Surveillance State

Posted by Soulskill on from the abraham-lincoln-terrorist-hunter dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The N.S.A.'s program is indeed alarming — but not, from a historical perspective, unprecedented. And history suggests that we should worry less about the surveillance itself and more about when the war in whose name the surveillance is being conducted will end. In 1862, after President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines. By rerouting those lines through his office, Stanton would keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal. On the back of Stanton's letter Lincoln scribbled his approval: 'The Secretary of War has my authority to exercise his discretion in the matter within mentioned.'"

12 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. It was wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was just as wrong then as this is now. Of course, people back then couldn't even dream of having such advanced surveillance technology.

    1. Re:It was wrong. by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Today is different. Is not just surveillace on a small portion of the people of US. We are talking about basically everyone in US, plus most of the rest of the world population, intruding in places/people that have diplomatic immunity, and hacking/sabotaging foreing companies and institutions, while claiming that hacking are acts of war. But i suppose that i could compare the Everest with a pebble, saying that is just a bit bigger.

    2. Re:It was wrong. by westlake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was just as wrong then as this is now.

      It is 1862.

      Fort Sumter surrendered in 1861. Washington DC borders on Virgina facing off against the Confederate capital a bare 100 miles away. You are an idiot if you don't secure the only means of communication in the world that moves reliably at speeds greater than a normal walking pace,

    3. Re:It was wrong. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was just as wrong then as this is now.

      It is 1862.

      Fort Sumter surrendered in 1861. Washington DC borders on Virgina facing off against the Confederate capital a bare 100 miles away. You are an idiot if you don't secure the only means of communication in the world that moves reliably at speeds greater than a normal walking pace,

      That is, of course, the other pernicious implication of any civil war comparisons: from the perspective of the US Government, the civil war actually was most of the emergencies and exigencies that people like to invoke when demanding expanded powers. At no time since the revolutionary war(which actually might have ended fairly quietly, had the rebels lost, with a bunch of executions of notable rebels, followed by pragmatic write-off of the rest and a canada-like trajectory) had things looked nearly so dire. Even the world wars were basically Europe's problem, with us intervening at arm's length as our interests dictated, and the Cold War could have gone hot and really fucked up everybody's day; but unless it actually did, things were mostly quiet.

      Anybody who, implicitly or explicitly, asserts anything even close to contemporary threats of Civil War gravity needs a smack with the cluebat.

    4. Re:It was wrong. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All those things didn't happen because Al Quida attacked. They happened because people overreacted to the attack.

      Compare 9/11 to, for example, the July bombings in London. Look at what the UK government did: Grumbled, cleared up the wreckage that was obstructing roads, and got things back to normal. Within a couple of days the city was running as normal again. A criminal investigation was launched, the surviving conspirators charged, and the issue done with. That's the appropriate response to a terrorist attack: Clean up and get over it.

      The death toll from 9/11 was equal to approximately one month of traffic accident fatalities in the US. Even 9/11 just didn't manage to kill enough people to be statistically noticeable. It was the panic that did the real damage - overreaction cost far more in every way than the attack itsself.

  2. Except, in that case there was an actual war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With an actual conclusion eventually reached. An ambiguous war on terror doesn't really have any sort of end date, unless we can somehow wipe out terror on Earth.

    1. Re:Except, in that case there was an actual war by SJHiIlman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the case of that war, yes, it was okay.

      No, it wasn't.

      It was a temporary and partial loss of freedom in order to help win a far more fundamental freedom for others.

      Don't harm innocent people (in this case, by taking away their freedoms) in order to defeat the bad guys; cowards do that.

    2. Re:Except, in that case there was an actual war by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not hard to wipe out terror. I mean what, did you think people just sat down on a Friday afternoon and said, hey I'm bored, let's blow up a building? Let's strap a vest packed with fertiliser based explosives to our chests and go take a last ride on a bus?

      Terrorism is created when people are cornered and feel they have no other option, vastly outgunned and outmanned. Oh there's a great hue and cry that the dishonourable terrorists aren't standing there getting mown down on a field of battle like proper upstanding folk, but they chose to win rather that die. It was the same in Ireland, the same in the Middle East, the same in Vietnam, the same everywhere some farmer puts down his plough and picks up a sword after his last child steps on a mine. If you want to stop terrorism stop going out there fucking with other countries. Simples!

      This is not a type of war any advanced country can win. Find another way to live or accept the price. Leave them alone and let them stand or fall on their own merits.

    3. Re:Except, in that case there was an actual war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just a nit.

      For the north, the war wasn't about slavery and the north certainly wasn't fighting to free four million slaves. The north was fighting to prevent the south from leaving. That's all. For the north, the war wasn't some moral crusade to free slaves - it was simply to prevent the south from leaving. (For the south, on the other hand, the notion to leave the union was driven by slavery although nearly everyone who fought in the war was not a slave owner - less than 2% of southern soldiers were part of families that owned slaves). There were a number of northern states that continued to support and allow slavery during and after the civil war until the 14th amendment was passed.

      Lincoln essentially weaponized abolitionism. He used abolitionism as a strategic tool to help defeat the south by depriving them of their economic and logistical infrastructure. Painting the Union as moral crusaders freeing the slaves is revisionism at its best, and it's every bit as wrong-headed and dishonest as painting the southern motivation as purely states rights.

  3. The America I believed in never existed by kheldan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do I really need to say anything more?

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:The America I believed in never existed by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If we're realistic, we'll never get there either. But we can push as far as we can in that direction, rest and recover, then push again. That's the history of the progressive movement- massive wins for a few years/a decade until society has had enough change, then a period where society pushes back. Happened in the 1910s, happened in the 1930s, happened in the 1960s. We're in the push phase now.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  4. aka the ends justify the means by nadaou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And history suggests that we should worry less about the
    surveillance itself and more about when the war in whose name the
    surveillance is being conducted will end.

    In other words, the ends justify the means, and historical
    precedence makes it ok to do commit whatever crime you like.

    I wonder if the author feels the same about the WWII internment
    camps for Japanese? We won that war, so it's all ok, we can do that
    again, right?

    Or the way the Native Indians were treated? We eventually grew a
    great nation on the land so that was all ok too, and we are
    justified in doing the same in future for other lofty goals?

    We define our nation by the society that we create through our
    actions. Don't try to feed us this apologist bullshit two days after
    the 4th, we have it in our power to be better than this.

    --
    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.