Originally published in the Boston Political Review. It has been lightly edited for style. With the midterms in rearview and the presidential election still relatively far away, 2019 is a perfect year to put into question the practicality of our electoral system—one that is not codified in our Constitution and does not provide for an accurate representation of the electors’ will. When writing the Constitution and outlining how our model of parliament should work, the Founders left the rules of the game—how our representatives get elected—entirely up to the states and Congress: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of choosing Senators.” (U.S. Constitution. art. I sec. 4.) These institutions, in response, opted for the British standard of first-past-the-post (FPTP), whereby the candidate with the greatest number of votes wins. With few other democratic options known to them, there was never any debate on the matter, and FPTP developed throughout the newly independent states. It is arguably the simplest way of naming winners. In fact, its simplicity would be the system’s redeeming quality: simple for the voters, who do not require a high level of literacy to understand the electoral procedure; simple for the candidates, who only need to focus on getting a minimum of one vote more than their closest rival; simple also for election officials, for whom the process of counting ballots and understanding how they translate into a winner could not be achieved through another democratic form. But this simple procedure does not translate the voters’ suffrage accurately as FPTP creates an environment where only two major parties can successfully coexist: traditionally, a party of the left contrasting with one of the right, both of which alternate in power. Maurice Duverger developed that theory back in the 1950s, and it has since been broadly accepted by political scientists as a law. FPTP ignores complexity of thought, does little to further the plurality of opinion in legislative bodies, and increases political apathy, with many voters dissatisfied with the meager choice of two viable candidates in a given election. Representatives are elected with the illusion of benefiting from an unconditional suffrage to govern as they like, when their constituents’ choice essentially consisted of picking one of two possible answers. Before expanding further on the problems presented by FPTP, let us already mention that there is an alternative, one which answers to that system’s inadequacies. It is an alternative recently introduced to the general U.S. population through our New England neighbors. During the 2016 election cycle, Mainers voted 52 to 48 percent in favor of that year’s ballot question 5, which allowed ranked-choice voting (RCV). With 2018 being the first year any state has tried out this electoral system, we can examine not only how RCV works in theory, but also how it has worked in practice. Also known as instant-runoff voting, preferential voting or the alternative vote system, RCV sets out to use as many rounds as are necessary to designate a winner with a majority. Voters under RCV have the option of not only voting for one candidate but ranking as many of the candidates as they want in the order of their choice. One such voter could fill in the oval for their favorite candidate but also include a second choice, should their first choice get eliminated, as well as additional choices, for as many potential rounds as there are candidates. Once come the time to process the election results, if a candidate manages to get 50-percent-plus-one of their district’s votes, that candidate is elected. However, if no candidate can attain an absolute majority of votes, then an additional round is held automatically, eliminating the candidate with the least number of votes and allocating the candidate’s votes to their elector’s second choices (bearing in mind that they may not have all chosen the same person). This process of elimination-and-transfer is repeated until a candidate reaches an absolute majority. That’s the theory, but we also got to see RCV play out in practice in Maine’s senatorial race and the elections in its two congressional districts. In the first, incumbent Democrat Chellie Pingree gathered a majority of 58.8 percent in the first round against her two opponents, thereby eliminating the need for a runoff. But in the second congressional district, none were that fortunate. Three candidates challenged incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin. The congressman came out as the leader in the first round, but his share of the vote—46.3 percent compared to his Democratic rival’s 45.6 percent—fell short of a majority, thereby triggering an instant runoff. The vote transfers from the two defeated independents reversed Poliquin’s lead, and Democrat Jared Golden was elected as the congressman from that district, harboring 50.6 percent of the final share of the votes. In short, RCV worked exactly as it was supposed to.
Opponents to RCV will see in FPTP a successful “gatekeeper of democracy,” one that, by excluding smaller parties from Congress and executive offices, effectively prevents extremists and their parties from gaining political power. They would argue that enacting RCV would pave the way for extremists in power. I argue instead that RCV combats extremist views: under this system, it is not enough for candidates to rally the votes of their own supporters. They also should ensure to appear prominently among others’ second choices, lest they be eliminated early on in favor of more consensual candidates. It is to attract these second and third choices that politicians will realize that appealing strictly to their own narrow base will only ensure their defeat as they are overtaken by candidates with a broader appeal. We may also look to the examples of Australia and Papua New Guinea where, instead of creating incessant gridlock as opponents to RCV would contend, the system encourages cooperation and compromise in politics, answering to a larger number of electors than just those who voted for the winning party. For instance, in the Australian House of Representatives, the Liberal party and the National party had to assemble in a center-right coalition in order to form a government against the Labor opposition, which virtually represents the only party left-of-center in Australia’s House. Indeed, whereas FPTP gives rise to single-party governments in a legislature who have broad discretion to operate as they will, establishing RCV as the norm for the election of members of Congress would improve the diversity of opinion and interests. If it caught on, RCV would likely force members of Congress into coalition with smaller parties whose existence would have been made possible by overcoming the two-party system. Currently, third parties rarely receive a significant amount of support, since, in effect, a third-party candidate often ends up siphoning votes from the major candidate to whom they are the most similar. For that reason, a vote for a third-party candidate is habitually seen as a “wasted vote”—one that could have potentially served the runner-up in defeating the elected winner. When, in 2000, 2.7 percent of the electorate voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader over Democrat Al Gore (who would have been their second choice), many supporters of Gore saw in those “wasted votes” the reason for the Democrats’ defeat that year and the subsequent election of George W. Bush. Similarly, Ross Perot’s independent run in the 1992 presidential election could have boosted Bill Clinton’s win to his first term in office by hindering his opponent. It is disputed—though obviously impossible to know—whether Perot “spoiled” George H.W. Bush’s chances of reelection, with the independent receiving 18.9 percent of the votes (but no electoral votes), a record for a non-major party presidential candidate. Whenever a successful third-party candidate emerges within FPTP, a trade-off happens which further misrepresents the electorate’s will. Under RCV, all the headaches related to tactical voting in a field of more than two candidates are eliminated. Within FPTP, these headaches exist as three fundamental questions: Should I vote for the candidate I like the most or one who has a chance of winning? How will others vote and how should that affect my vote? How likely is it that my candidate will win? Add to that some excessive polling, followed by coverage of these same polls on a 24-hour loop, and you are left with a distorted election where few people got to vote for their ideal candidate. Contrast that with RCV, where voters may pick their utmost favorite candidate, while also designating candidates they tolerate as their backups. The anticipated outcome is an elected member who benefits from the approval of a majority of their constituency. This greater level of consent needed for a candidate to secure an election makes the officials elected under RCV more legitimate in their role than those elected with a simple plurality of votes in one round. All in all, a field of candidates for an elected position should do its best to mirror the complexities of public opinion. In 2016, the two major presidential candidates were historically unpopular, yet there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that one of the two would win. Alternatives, trampled under FPTP, have a chance to emerge with RCV, and even prove to be more popular than the traditional binary choice. Having emerged successfully in Maine, RCV may have other states thinking over how they frame their elections—and fortunately so. Following the example set by the Pine Tree State, Massachusetts should be among the firsts to make ranked-choice voting a reality for its electorate. Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim had already endorsed the idea back in September, during his unsuccessful bid for secretary of state. Though such matters are not under the jurisdiction of a city council, the General Court (and its veto-proof supermajority) has the authority to change how we send people to represent us in Congress. And, whether it be Congress, state houses or executive offices, wherever FPTP exists, it should be amended with RCV. They are set to debate each other next Tuesday, but what can they argue about? His platform reads, “Mike strongly supports universal health care coverage.” Hers informs us that the councilor “will support efforts to pass legislation ensuring universal, Medicare-for-all health care coverage.”
Such similarities are not the exception but the rule. Among many examples, they both support stronger gun control, oppose President Trump on immigration reform and advocate for more affordable housing. The race for the district’s democratic nomination will not oppose conflicting ideologies, but will ask voters if Pressley’s identity — her background, experience and actions taken on behalf of it — provides her with a legitimate claim to the seat, as the 10-term incumbent promotes his progressive track record. The first non-white woman elected to the city council in its century-long history, Pressley, a councilor on her fifth term, unquestionably has the qualifications to also become Massachusetts’ first non-white member in the US House of Representatives. Pressley, though endorsed by several progressive politicians (like former Mayor of Newton Setti Warren and former Mass. Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh) and backed by two progressive political action committees (PACs), would be unseating a noted member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On Monday, Pressley also received the endorsement of Mass. Attorney General Maura Healey who, on Facebook, outlined not ideas from the councilor’s platform that would suggest she would be a better fit for the position, but instead the two politicians’ history and ties with each other. “For me, this isn’t political, it’s personal,” wrote the Attorney General. Capuano has received the endorsement of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, as well as those of noted black politicians former Mass. Governor Deval Patrick, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), the last of whom is recognized as a leader in civil rights. And with good reason: Capuano, a white man, has been adept at defending the interests of minorities in the only congressional district in Massachusetts which comprises a majority of minorities in its electorate; a district which has reelected him every time since 2000, always with at least 80 percent of the vote. Pressley’s leading argument in the race pertains to the increase in diversity that she would bring to Congress, as a black woman who is over 20 years younger than her opponent. She has struggled to find other arguments distancing herself from her rival: Pressley claimed a position that was more pro-choice on the issue of women’s reproductive rights than that of Capuano, claiming she, unlike him, opposed the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of federal funds for abortions in most instances. However, Capuano responded that he too had been opposed to that piece of legislation. However, she has recently managed to find an issue separating herself from Capuano and dividing the political left. The councilor is pushing for the abolition of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whereas Capuano, though he voted against ICE’s creation in 2002, prefers to reform it, not dismantle it. Speaking on her decision to run for office back in 2009, Pressley said, “It seems that should be the easiest [question to answer], but when it is so obvious to you, it can be the hardest thing to articulate.” Voters in the seventh may find it hard to understand why the councilor chose to challenge a very like-minded congressman, though the month of campaigning before us may yet highlight more differences between the two. Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley announced in January her campaign to challenge US Representative Mike Capuano in the Democratic primary of the seventh congressional district of Massachusetts, encompassing most of Boston. The questions of justice, power, and their interrelation are topics vastly and carefully studied in many works of political science and philosophy. Justice is the freedom allotted to each citizen and written into law which derives its legitimacy from the force that imposes it: power. We will consider how power frames justice by establishing it, controlling it, and enforcing it. First, we will examine the viewpoint of King Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone who defines justice as a notion codified and written out in the law subordinating his community; then, we will study the Lockean compact from Locke’s Second Treatise of Government to better understand the root of the power-to-justice relation; finally, via the analysis of Antigone’s titular character’s relation to justice, we will understand how individuals do not all submit to the same established powers, and as a result, may comply with a different justice than other members from their society. Firstly, let us consider justice and power as they are presented in Sophocles’ Antigone, and how the possession of one permits the control of the other. Two interpretations of justice rival each other in the play: this dichotomy opposes eternal or divine law to mortal law. The latter philosophy is defended by the play’s antagonist, the all-powerful King Creon, who, as the absolute monarch, believes in the idea of justice residing in a written set of rules. Quoting the king’s own words, “The city is the king’s—that’s the law!” (Sophocles 97). Through Creon, we perceive how the possession of political power can directly influence justice as the explicitly laid-out law of a land. Says he, “as I am next in kin to the dead, / I now possess the throne and all its powers” (Sophocles 67). His position as ruler of the state gives him a legitimate claim to the unfettered shaping of the law by which his constituents are bound, as the lack of rebellion could appear as an adherence to the monarch’s rule by the common folk. Resuming this, Creon states, “that man / the city places in authority, his orders / must be obeyed, large and small, / right and wrong” (Sophocles 94). Legitimacy is given as long as the constituents adhere to them, which they do out of fear of reprisal: says Ismene, Antigone’s sister, “think what a death we’ll die, the worst of all / if we violate the laws and override / the fixed decree of the throne” (Sophocles 62). Justice gains its legitimacy through the respect of the established power, and the amount of respect an established power receives depends entirely on the respectability of the power, gained often by spreading a fear of breaking the law among the constituents, which Creon does, ruling his kingdom with an iron fist. A power is also respected as long as a given individual benefits from it: King Creon does, as the codifier of Thebes’ justice, but a regular commoner like Ismene does too, as breaking the law would result in severe punishment. Thus, it is clear that the two values are tightly intertwined. Let us further examine why a population complies with the established order of a higher power, through Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. Locke expands on this relationship, stating that the relationship between ruler and ruled is one characterized by a robust sense of consent whereby individuals in a group relinquish their power – their natural freedom – to an established power – the government – out of self-interest (since, perhaps most importantly, the established power insures security to its citizens) but also to pursue the greater good for the group as a whole. “Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another” (Locke 46). The author explains how a civil society is given birth when individuals work together to form a government, but consent is then granted by any member of a population as soon as he or she spends any time within the perimeters of the commonwealth (or state). He further analyzes this hierarchy of people as not organic, but deliberate. He summarizes the voluntary submission of one group to a supreme authority thusly: “The only way whereby anyone divests himself of his natural liberty, […] is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it” (Locke 52). A prospective ruler could very well attempt to claim a land, but would not be owed the obedience of her people should no agreement or compact be reached between herself and her hopeful subjects, the latter of whom expect the sovereign to be responsible for protecting her people and her people’s private property. Though Locke’s and Creon’s end observations are the same – a sovereign becomes entrusted with the political power, Locke differs in stating that “[The community] will always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with; and to rid themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation, for which they entered into society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power” (Locke 78). The population only receives full power if the government fails in upholding its dominance. This can happen when either party, the ruler of the common folk, transgresses their boundaries, resulting in the violation of the initial consent. But often, people believe in a higher power, which must therefore be the holder of a higher justice. We now return to Antigone to consider how, sometimes, the higher power to whom people adhere are held by beings existing only through faith, and how the difficulty of complying to the edicts of a being unattainable to us leads to disorder in a society. Antigone, the titular character of Sophocles’ play, adheres to a power she believes greater than any man’s – God’s. In the play, she fights for the religious burial of her late brother, considered a traitor to the city. Thebes’ justice states that a traitor cannot be buried within the confines of the city, but Antigone’s religion states that his burial is a requisite for his induction into heaven. She follows the same logic as her uncle Creon, whereby a greater degree of power results in a greater value of justice; however, she chooses divine justice over Theban law, and submits herself to a god rather than a king, in contrast to the other citizens. Antigone confronts Creon, telling him that he too should subject himself to the gods and not believe himself to be a supreme ruler, as he remains a human being. “It wasn’t Zeus, not in the least, who made this proclamation […] Nor did that Justice, dwelling with the gods […] ordain such laws for men. Nor did I think your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods” (Sophocles 82). This does however present issues when the justice instilled by a supreme being is still the source of many debates, and still very much open to interpretation, as two individuals could very well justify contradictory actions by citing the same verse from a religious book. To some degree, this criticism is also valid for mortal law charters like the American Constitution, which still elicits much debate over the Founding Fathers’ intentions when writing it. When the rule-setters of justice, the rulers in political power, are unavailable to the population, like God, or the Founding Fathers today, it becomes complicated for a society to agree on the scope or interpretation of a given law. For that reason, human beings exercising political power should and will try to impose their word as law, superseding individual moral codes, which could be derived from religion. All in all, in debating whether justice or power is more important in politics, one must realize that the two are linked by causation. The importance of a power determines the importance of a justice, and respect for one implies respect for the other as well. Since every man submits to power, it is, first and foremost, power that reigns; as the “causer,” one might view power as more important in politics. Works cited Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1980. Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. Translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1984. Long before I wanted to be a journalist, I wanted to be a talk show host. More precisely, I wanted to be Jon Stewart. He was the host of The Daily Show, a satirical late show on Comedy Central, since before I was born, and until 2015. I started watching it three years before it ended; at first, I was reticent to the idea of viewing the show: I knew it to be heavily political in nature – which, to the 2012 version of me, was boring. However, politics would become a passion of mine, as I later became a Daily Show enthusiast (and a political science major, down the line). Thus, once Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon’s antics became stale to me, and after my father urged me enough times to “give Jon a try,” I began watching the show, right in the middle of the presidential election between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. I did not watch any “real news” on the side, so The Daily Show became my sole source of news on current events. However, this comedy show – that described itself as “fake news” long before a U.S. President popularized the expression – acted as a gateway drug for me towards actual journalism. I realized that I vastly appreciated Jon Stewart as a comedian, but truly admired him as a journalist, in spite of being a “fake one.” Long before I was even set on my career path, The Daily Show was giving me daily lessons on journalism and the ethics thereof, continually criticizing the networks that fell into the traps of sensationalism, partisanship, and other forms of dishonest or lazy reporting. An archive that stood out to me, and that I go back to every now and then, was Jon Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s short-lived debate show Crossfire. On that day, I saw a fake journalist condemn real ones on their failure to serve the public discourse, and I understood better than ever the journalist’s duty to their viewer. From then on, I wanted to serve the public in that regard, with Jon Stewart – not more obvious figures, like Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite – guiding my sense of ethics. I began watching the NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News, but always with this nagging suspicion that they may be trying to lure me into a trap of lies. I decided to be a journalist, but approached journalism with an acute sense of skepticism (and fortunately so).
Before long, I was imagining myself in Jon Stewart’s shoes, hosting a similar type of show (though an hour in length) named Night News with Elias Miller, that I decided would air on HBO (so as to not worry about commercial breaks and advertisers), weeknights at the start of the late-night time slot, from 11 p.m. to midnight. I had established a routine, a signature intro at the beginning of every show. At the top of the hour, I would lead in with a cold open, announcing the date, for instance, “It is Thursday, October 15th, 2015. Tonight…” At that point, I would go out of camera’s vision and get onto the headlines of the day. I found that emphasizing the word “tonight” was very important, and repeated “tonight” over to myself, to find the best possible way of delivering that word. I eventually settled on a forceful and low tone of voice, and I managed to equally stress both syllables of “to-night”. After the headlines had been announced, I would go back on screen to announce “Live from New York, it’s Night News” (which became “Live from New York, Night News begins now,” once I realized Saturday Night Live had stolen my line, some 40 years beforehand), leading to the show’s “newsy but rocky” opening. On my walks to and from school, I would imagine jokes, fragments and monologues that would be aired on the show, and I would plan out the schedule of the show, giving the guest portion a lengthy 20 minutes (a bold and innovative move I was quite proud of). Staying true to my Daily Show upbringing, I devoted an entire recurring segment of the show to internal media criticism. That segment, the name of which I have now forgotten, would occur as many times as I needed it to. I had already vowed to pull no punches, regardless of the network I was commenting on. Then, a lot of my free time was spent mentally conceiving how I would want the set to look, with a U-shaped desk in the center and video walls in the backdrop. I remember sketching the same studio several times over in my mathematics notebook, using my ruler not to solve the problems assigned to us, but to insure that every aspect of the set was how I wanted it to be. I never acquired real broadcast set parts to conceptualize it – it would have been hard to fit any of these items inside of my room – but I did spend a lot of my online time on tvsetdesigns.com browsing through their products (and considering the prices, which made my jaw drop to the floor) and newscaststudio.com, looking at the many examples of existing television sets, often adding the pictures of my favorites to a Google Drive folder I still have to this day. At most times, my imaginary show occupied space in my mind, and I became more invested in Night News than in my schoolwork, though it did not present a real problem: this newfound aspiration which lasted years was my first motivation to get through middle and high school, to pursue college after that, and to seek a career in a field I would be interested in. Thinking back on it, I find it interesting how, before any dreams of exercising a profession, I simply wanted to replicate an existing person, to become a Generation Z version of Jon Stewart. I am confident that, if at that age, I had been tasked to write a biography on that man, I would have done an excellent job – scouring the web for any and all information pertaining to this person and his history had made me, in a creepy way, an expert on an individual I did not even know personally. It is common for people of all ages, though especially younger ones, to look up to certain people, often celebrities, and attempt to emulate them. I saw in a man traits that I admired and wished to acquire for myself: integrity, wit, wisdom, oratory talent… and those traits (mostly) happen to match up with the necessary tools a journalist must have at their disposal. However, it is not particularly healthy to put a “hero” on a pedestal, as that implies simultaneously putting ourselves down and subordinating ourselves to our idealized version of this human being. As they are often people we do not know personally, we merely know how they display themselves in public, and we are ill-informed of their faults. Of course, every now and then a scandal erupts, and we are let down by our heroes, whose horrible deeds have been brought to the forefront. The past couple years have presented countless examples of this, with many revelations of sexual assault or harassment being brought up against well-respected (and, by many, idolized) individuals. This flawed idea we make of idols based on what is visible by us is why it is often advised never to meet your heroes. For all my foraging through Jon Stewart’s personal details, middle-school-me never knew that he is reportedly quick-tempered, or of other faults he must have, by virtue of his human nature. But in a way, I have found that our heroes are generally finer aspects of ourselves – their qualities are those we aspire to have; this is why, for instance, I went into such great detail drawing out the logistics of my plans to emulate Jon Stewart. But it could also be a two-step evolution: though I was firstly consumed by my worship of this television host, I gradually broke free from the clutch of idolatry to branch out into bringing my own brand to the world, as Night News became increasingly Elias Miller and decreasingly Daily Show 2.0. Today, I no longer even wish to host such a show, and my goal in life has switched from wanting to make people laugh to simply wishing to inform them of the facts. I still have a tremendous amount of respect for Jon Stewart, and even if we do not become best friends as younger, naiver me thought, it is undeniable that his influence will be palpable in my work, as will those of many others, who were themselves influenced by others before them, and so forth in infinite regress. His advice still resonates with me, years later: even as I now submit my applications to intern for news organizations this summer, I keep in mind some of Jon Stewart’s parting words, in his final show: “Bullshit is everywhere,” and I am looking out for it. When one thinks of liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and the compromising of them by the government in the name of security of the general welfare, the words “Global surveillance” and “NSA” (National Security Agency) come to mind.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees to all Americans that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons […] and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” However, nowadays, that constitutional right has not always been respected. In fact, Edward Snowden (pictured) rose to prominence in 2013 due to his disclosure of several classified documents held by the NSA and American government on their mass surveillance of entire populations around the globe. As always, technology races far ahead of our ability to calmly and wisely legislate about the latest surveillance tools. This global surveillance program has been effective in preventing numerous terrorist and criminal acts. Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at Haifa University, said that “Lone wolves,” which means assailants who act alone when committing terrorism, and “wolf pack” terrorists, who act in small groups, are all united when communicating online: “Better monitoring of the Net, and chatter, and all the people who access specific sites is a good way to identify them.” It is of course vastly important to take down these groups before they act, especially in a nation that still has not recovered from the 9/11 attacks. However, this has also allowed the agency to collect data on what seems to be all American citizens and perpetrated the even greater excesses purported by Edward Snowden, who currently undergoes a criminal charge of “theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified intelligence to an unauthorized person” and is loathed by many: a Pentagon official is quoted stating, “I would love to put a bullet in his head. I do not take pleasure in taking another human being’s life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single-handedly the greatest traitor in American history.” Therefore, the question that remains unanswered is: How much privacy do we trade off for security? How much security do we relinquish for privacy? What is the perfect balance, if there is one? Additionally, can the high level of surveillance and lack of any real oversight create a true surveillance state that could destroy America’s democracy? J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972) was the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and was successful in supervising investigations that led to the capture and efficient apprehension of many criminals, using many procedures that he had himself introduced. Still, it was later revealed that he misused and abused his high-ranked position by accumulating top-secret records on political leaders and using his authoritative figure to harass political dissidents and activists, many of whom he feared were communists. J. Edgar Hoover did not have the new and powerful technologies that shape our world today, but if he did, the tasks undertaken by him could have been immensely worse. This all goes to show that such power in the hands of the wrong people could have very negative effects on the world as we know it: individuals in charge or utilizing tools of the surveillance state could blackmail politicians — even presidents. As it stands, this measure of “global surveillance” may be a violation of the Fourth Amendment and has the potential of being an incredible danger to the American people. It is not that this President would use it for bad ends, but that others or rogue individuals within any of the organizations — many of whom are private corporate contractors — could not only blackmail citizens with this massive amount of stored data but could hold our elected officials hostage with illicit information obtained in this way. Even the president is not exempt from this threat. This is one critical area that is not discussed when people say “I have nothing to hide.” It is not just the individual citizen, but also the people who have power to make policy and create and enforce legislation that could be corrupted and used by information obtained in this manner. Not necessarily from the government, but from corporate contractors. Presently, politicians are often influenced by lobbies of powerful corporations who now have “personhood” status and can give almost unlimited political donations (or bribes); we are now also faced with the reality that everyone can be under surveillance. How will that affect our democracy when no one’s watching the watchers? |