Plasma Pool

Anyone expecting a rollback of the current administration’s concerted efforts to invade the privacy of individual American citizens shouldn’t hold out hope that the Barack Obama Administration will deliver it.

Obama’s lukewarm but firm support for allowing the effectively warrantless wiretapping begun under George W. Bush to persist (with some caveats) may be a moderate position today, but only because Bush has done so much to make prying into the personal lives of U.S. citizens a routine function of our government. When Obama had the chance to defend our privacy by opposing a mollified surveillance bill that allows the issuing of warrants to investigate individuals whose link to a potential crime has not been specifically and individually evaluated and verified by an impartial judge, he declined to do so. Although it began covertly—as the culmination of the notions of executive-power extremist neoconservatives in the Pentagon and Office of the Vice President (chief Cheney aide David Addington on the FISA court: “[T]here is a serious constitutional question that Congress might… try to block the president’s power”) and partisan hacks in the Justice Department—the invasion of our privacy by our government has been progressively normalized, and president-elect Barack Obama, who sanctioned it after securing the nomination and leadership of his party, deserves some of the blame for it.¹

Unfortunately, if the birth pangs of his administration are any indication, our next president seeks to perpetuate his predecessor’s troublesome trend toward federal invasion of personal privacy. From yesterday’s International Herald Tribune (via The New York Times) comes news that applicants seeking positions in the Obama Administration should be prepared to reveal everything from whether they own a gun to whether they’ve ever said or done anything, in the corporeal world or online, that—if revealed and trounced by the press—could potentially embarrass the president-elect. “[I]n this particular transition,” says Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist,

it’s becoming clear that job aspirants, and their family members, better be exceptionally tidy record-keepers, whether or not they’ve got potential conflicts-of-interest or the odd drunk-driving charge in their background. According to a Jackie Calmes article in The New York Times today, the basic questionnaire being distributed by the Obama transition team to those seeking “high-ranking positions” is a 63-point monster of a request for disclosure that goes beyond the usual have-you-been-a-lobbyist-or-felon stuff. Ever sent a potentially embarrassing email? (Who hasn’t!). Cough it up. Ever done a blog post or set up a Facebook page? Send that along, please. [...] It’s not clear from the article exactly how far down the food chain this questionnaire is being applied.

The Obama team, in IHT, casts its grueling vetting process as a part of its promise to clean up the Beltway:

Obama has elevated the vetting even beyond what might have been expected, especially when it comes to applicants’ family members, in a reflection of his campaign rhetoric against lobbying and the back-scratching, self-serving ways of Washington.

“President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business, and the vetting process exemplifies that,” said Stephanie Cutter, chief spokeswoman for the Obama transition office.

Obama has promised that he will head the most transparent administration in American history, and claims that the public airing of the many ways in which applicants for top positions are evaluated and judged is a part of that effort. Transparency within the workings of the new administration is a supremely laudable goal, especially as we’re beginning to discover the full affect of cronyism in the last administration. But mucking through the private lives of individuals has nothing to do with building a transparent administration. Rather, and rather transparently, it has to do with public relations. The Obama Administration is preemptively attempting to avoid being caught with its pants down.

Private diaries should remain inscrutable to public eyes

It matters a good deal, though, what one finds once the pants are down. Concern that a potential applicant might have lobbied for Fannie Mae is legitimate. Concern that an individual might have written something in his personal diary that could embarrass Obama, on the other hand, is not; what one writes in one’s personal diary is no one’s business but his own. Yet unbelievably, the Obama questionnaire asks that you “please describe” if

you have keep or have kept a diary that contains anything that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source embarassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect [sic] if it were made public.

Asking whether an applicant has ever written or done anything that could potentially embarrass Obama is far too broad an inquiry. Aside from the most basic questions about finances and crimes, only inquiries directly relevant to the functioning of the job for which an applicant is applying should be in bounds here. Invading applicants’ any lives further demonstrates that the Obama transition team is more concerned with covering its boss’s tail than with respecting the constitutional privacy of the U.S. citizens it aims to recruit. This is an inauspicious and unfortunate beginning for an administration that will doubtlessly be depended upon more than any other in recent history to champion civil liberties, including the right to privacy that underpins so much of progressive jurisprudence.

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1. Glenn Greenwald, Salon’s resident constitutional law and civil liberties critic, gives a thorough accounting of Obama’s evolution on this issue.

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UPDATE (November 20, 2008): Ars Technica reports that the Department of Justice has instructed its surveillance angents to avoid federal and state regulations that prevent telecoms from turning over confidential information about your whereabouts and activities by using use “triggerfish” technology to essentially bypass the telecoms and compile data on you, with neither cause nor oversight. Let’s hope our constitutional-lawyer president closes that loophole….

UPDATE (November 21, 2008): Politico reports:

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is asking potential appointees detailed questions about gun ownership, and firearms advocates aren’t happy about it.

The National Rifle Association has denounced the move, which has already led one Republican senator to consider legislation aimed at ensuring a president can’t use an applicant’s gun ownership status to deny employment.

It’s just one question on a lengthy personnel form — No. 59 on a 63-question list — but the furor over the query is a vivid reminder of the intensity of support for Second Amendment rights and signals the scrutiny Obama is likely to receive from the ever-vigilant gun lobby.

Obama’s transition team declined to go into detail on why they included the question, suggesting only that it was done to ensure potential appointees were in line with gun laws.

“The intent of the gun question is to determine legal permitting,” said one transition aide.

But even some Democrats and transition experts are baffled by the inclusion of the question.

Tucked in at the end of the questionnaire and listed under “Miscellaneous,” it reads: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”

Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University, said there was no such question for potential appointees when President George W. Bush took office in 2000.

“It kind of sticks out there like a sore thumb,” Light said.

He expressed uncertainty over why it was included but surmised it was out of an abundance of caution, a desire to avoid the spectacle of a Cabinet-level or other high-ranking appointee who is discovered to have an unregistered handgun at home.

“It’s the kind of thing that, if dug out, could be an embarrassment to the president-elect,” Light said. [...]

(via Kelley Vlahos at The American Conservative)

UPDATE (November 23, 2008): From Micah L. Sifry at techPresident on November 13:

I am hoping that we don’t see the rise of a white-glove test for entering public service. In the internet age, the odds are close to zero that there isn’t a picture somewhere online of you picking your nose, or chugging a beer, or doing something “embarrassing.” Let’s hope that the Obama vetters focus on the important stuff, like financial or ethical misbehavior and conflicts of interest. Let’s not create a situation where people are afraid to express themselves online because someday someone might use their words or image to “embarrass” them or their boss.