The morning after final passage of the USA Freedom Act, while some foes of mass surveillance were celebrating, Thomas Drake sounded decidedly glum. The new law, he told me, is \u201ca new spy program.\u201d It restarts some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act and further codifies systematic violations of Fourth Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
Later on Wednesday, here in Oslo as part of a \u201cStand Up For Truth\u201d tour, Drake warned at a public forum that \u201cnational security\u201d has become \u201cthe new state religion.\u201d Meanwhile, his Twitter messages were calling the USA Freedom Act an \u201citty-bitty step\u201d \u2013 and a \u201cstop\/restart kabuki shell game\u201d that \u201cstarts w\/ restarting bulk collection of phone records.\u201d<\/p>\n
That downbeat appraisal of the USA Freedom Act should give pause to its celebrants. Drake is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency \u2013 and a whistleblower who endured prosecution and faced decades in prison for daring to speak truthfully about NSA activities. He ran afoul of vindictive authorities because he refused to go along with the NSA\u2019s massive surveillance program after 9\/11.<\/p>\n
Drake understands how the NSA operates from the highest strategic levels. He notes a telling fact that has gone virtually unacknowledged by anti-surveillance boosters of the USA Freedom Act: \u201cNSA approved.\u201d So, of course, did the top purveyor of mendacious claims about the U.S. government\u2019s surveillance programs \u2013 President Obama \u2013 who eagerly signed the \u201cUSA Freedom\u201d bill into law just hours after the Senate passed it.<\/p>\n
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A comparable guardian of our rights, House Speaker John Boehner, crowed: \u201cThis legislation is critical to keeping Americans safe from terrorism and protecting their civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some organizations with civil-liberties credentials have responded to the USA Freedom Act by popping open champagne bottles at various decibels, more sober assessments have also been heard. Just after senators approved the bill and sent it to the president, Demand Progress issued a statement<\/a> pointing out: \u201cThe Senate just voted to reinstitute certain lapsed surveillance authorities \u2013 and that means that USA Freedom actually made Americans less free.\u201d<\/p>\n Another astute assessment<\/a> came from CREDO, saying that Congress had just created \u201csweeping new authorities for the government to conduct unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n As it happened, the president signed the USA Freedom Act into law while four U.S. \u201cnational security\u201d whistleblowers \u2013 Drake as well as Coleen Rowley (FBI), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department) and Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) \u2013 were partway through a \u201cStand Up For Truth<\/a>\u201d speaking tour from London<\/a> to Oslo<\/a> to Stockholm<\/a> to Berlin<\/a>. Traveling as part of the tour, I\u2019ve been struck by the intensity of interest from audiences in the countries we\u2019ve already visited \u2013 Great Britain and Norway \u2013 where governments have moved to worsen repressive policies for mass surveillance.<\/p>\n Right now, many people in Europe and elsewhere who care about civil liberties and want true press freedom are looking at the United States: to understand what an aroused citizenry might be able to accomplish, seeking to roll back a dangerous accumulation of power by an ostensibly democratic government. Let\u2019s not unwittingly deceive them \u2013 or ourselves \u2013 about how much ground the U.S. surveillance state has lost so far.<\/p>\n Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include<\/i>War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n