On Tuesday, July 16, at an event in Atlanta, ex-president Jimmy Carter made his blockbuster statement referring to, among other issues, the mass surveillance of U.S. citizens. The event was sponsored by a German organization devoted to building German American relations. Der Spiegel and the International Business Times reported on Carter’s comments. His comments have yet to appear in American mainstream media.

This is not the first time ex-president Carter has expressed deep concern about the direction the country is headed.

In a 2012 New York Times op-ed, Carter criticized the Obama administration and Democratic and Republican legislators for abandoning the role of the United States as the global champion of human rights. He chastised a complacent public for allowing that to happen.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.. . .

In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications.

In June of this year, Carter expressed his opinion about the newly revealed NSA surveillance scandal and Edward Snowden. Speaking to CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux, he said:

I think the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far, and I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive. . . Bringing it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.

He added that although Snowden violated US law, by bringing the issue to light, he may have ultimately done good for the country.

A few days ago, at the meeting in Atlanta, Carter cited the excessive influence of money in U.S, election campaigns and confusing election rules as playing key roles in the destruction of our democracy. The ex-president, who through his “Carter Center,” monitors elections worldwide, doubts the United States meets the Center’s standards for fair elections.

I only hope it begins to sink in among the general public that we have exchanged whatever fragile democracy we once had for a bi-partisan, secret military surveillance state whose main purpose is to protect and promote the interests of banks and multinational corporations at home and abroad. Perhaps an ex-president, a Democrat, will shake us out of our complacency.

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I wasn’t much interested in all of the hullabaloo about the government spying on our phone calls, emails, etc., until I read this article about how the definition of “eco terrorist” is being stretched to include peaceful protests. If a “tree hugger” or “tree sitter” is a terrorist, then those of us who are members of any environmental or conservation group might also be labeled terrorists, too. I know there have been some people who have gone to extremes, like destroying the property of a company doing business that harms the environment or that tortures animals, and maybe those illegal acts can be stretched to fit the definition of “terrorism.” But even that is a stretch.

If all the protesters along the route of the Keystone pipeline are arrested, charged, convicted and jailed, what do we do?  I’m thinking of those civil rights activists in the 50’s and 60’s who just kept filling in the places of the ones arrested, until the police didn’t have any more jail space. Do we have to do that?  And would we?

And what about those of us who write articles and letters to newspapers criticizing the polluters? Are we a “danger” to the security of our nation? This past Tuesday evening, several dozen citizens spoke at a public hearing in Union, Mo., testifying under oath and for the record that we don’t trust Ameren Missouri to build a coal ash landfill in the Missouri River floodplain at Labadie. Some of us even hinted that Ameren bribes the decision makers with campaign contributions and by wining and dining them at parties when the American Legislative Exchange Council meets at fancy resorts. Since Ameren provides an essential product and service, does that make us subversive? Our faces are now in the video record, and our testimony transcribed by a court reporter. It would be incredibly easy for someone who wanted to intimidate us to find out where we live, get into our electronic devices, and do some real damage.

If this seems far-fetched, read in this DeSmog Blog article about the protesters outside a meeting of ALEC  in Phoenix in 2012. I happen to know some of the folks who were there and protested. They are hardly the dangerous type, since most are middle aged or older and couldn’t do any real harm even if they tried. But that didn’t matter to the powers-that-be.
I’ve been to many protests where we were allowed to walk peacefully up and down a public sidewalk carrying signs. The operative word here is “allowed.”  There are local rules and regulations about protests, rallies, parades, etc., and that’s fine. But how those rules are enforced can change pretty quickly. As long as we are not a real threat to the power structure, the police are told to just keep an eye on us.  But step on some toes, as the Occupy protesters did, and permits are canceled, and off to jail they go.

Like the frog in warm water, we may be getting used to limits on our freedom of assembly and our right to criticize the government or the corporations that actually run the government. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has to think twice about speaking out and ask myself how much I am willing to risk. I had a poster in the 70’s that said, “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t think they’re not out to get you.”  Where is the line between fear/paranoia and the need to be really careful?  I don’t know.

If you go to the website of the Labadie Environmental Organization, you can see a photo of the Labadie bottoms and the Ameren plant sitting right there next to the river. For now, no one has been charged as an “eco terrorist” for posting that photo or for taking interested citizens on tours around the area on public roads. At least not yet.

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