Spying in defense of liberty
Barry Goldwater famously said that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." But I suspect even the late Arizona senator and 1964 GOP presidential candidate might be creeped out if he knew about the privatization of Big Brother. Is it OK for private groups to infiltrate domestic citizen's groups? Is spying in defense of liberty a virtue or a vice?
A recent revelation is in a new story from Mother Jones that reveals that a leading gun control advocate, Mary McFate, is apparently the same person as Mary Lou Sapone, "a self-described 'research consultant,' who for decades has covertly infiltrated citizens groups for private security firms hired by corporations that are targeted by activist campaigns. For some time, Sapone also worked for the National Rifle Association." She was active in anti-gun groups.
According to Mother Jones:
During Sapone's ascent through the ranks of the gun control movement, she worked for the NRA, according to a business associate. In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, who had been president of the Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, said that the NRA had been "a client" of Sapone's. (As a subcontractor for BBI, Sapone had planted an operative within an environmental group in Lake Charles, Louisiana.) According to Ward, at his request Sapone had introduced BBI to the NRA in early 1999. And that introduction quickly paid off. Billing records obtained by Mother Jones indicate that between May 1999 and April 2000, the NRA paid BBI nearly $80,000 for various services.
In another 2003 deposition, Jay Bly, a former Secret Service officer who worked for BBI, was asked what type of work the security firm had done for the NRA, and he responded, "Those are very sensitive issues, and I'm just not comfortable going into it. I'm really not." Later in the deposition, Bly said, "I did a number of different things for the NRA in the area of investigation, the area of personal protection, in the area of event security, in the area of intelligence gathering, okay?"
Civil libertarians and gun rights advocates are always sounding alarms against government over-reach including electronic surveillance, eavesdropping, computer-tracked national ID cards, and invasions of privacy. Indeed, one of the purposes of the Second Amendment is to allow individuals to protect themselves. This kind of sleazy behavior undermines what that NRA is ostensibly in existence to protect, which is personal liberty against invasion and trespass. The use of spies, moles and infiltrators to weasel inside citizen's groups is scary, whether it's Big Brother's government, or his private business lobby.
Update: Here's some lovely news. Guess who's in the private intelligence business now? Blackwater.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Jul 31, 5:56 a.m. inappropriate
Everyone does it: This is really no different than when a newspaper's investigative reporter goes undercover to get a story. It is not because reporters are employed by a newspaper that this tactic is acceptable, but rather because the tactic is acceptable in general. The press enjoys no special privileges denied to the general public.
Posted Thu, Jul 31, 6 a.m. inappropriate
Turn it around: Now I wonder, would Mother Jones give a flip if the Brady Campaign or Violence Policy Center had a mole inside the NRA?
Something tells me No.
Posted Thu, Jul 31, 8:54 a.m. inappropriate
RE: veryone does it: She wasn't there to report. She was apparently helping to run the organizations and feeding intelligence back to groups working directly against them which could, in effect, amount to a form of sabotage.
Posted Thu, Jul 31, 2:54 p.m. inappropriate
RE: veryone does it: knute.berger wrote: "She wasn't there to report. She was apparently helping to run the organizations and feeding intelligence back to groups working directly against them which could, in effect, amount to a form of sabotage."
I see your point -- that's exactly the kind of behavior that so infuriated Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Many secret Marxists or communist sympathizers were seeking and sometimes obtaining positions of power and/or influence within the anti-communist American Establishment -- just as this secretly pro-NRA woman managed to finagle a position of power and influence in various gun control organizations.
Perhaps the solution is for Congress to establish a "House Unprogressive Activities Committee." There, leaders of gun-control organizations could be subpoenaed to answer under oath whether they're pro-NRA. If they admit it, they lose their jobs in gun control organizations; if they deny it and are later found out -- they get convicted of perjury and sent to prison. Maybe anti-gun organizations should also require loyalty oaths from their leaders and paid employees.
Posted Thu, Jul 31, 7:06 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Turn it around, and over and under...: Try actually reading the post, as well as the Mother Jones article.
The point is the Brady Campaign DOES NOT have a mole, nor would they lower their ethical standards to that level. GET IT?
Read it AGAIN:
"Civil libertarians and gun rights advocates are always sounding alarms against government over-reach including electronic surveillance, eavesdropping, computer-tracked national ID cards, and invasions of privacy. Indeed, one of the purposes of the Second Amendment is to allow individuals to protect themselves. This kind of sleazy behavior undermines what that NRA is ostensibly in existence to protect, which is personal liberty against invasion and trespass. The use of spies, moles and infiltrators to weasel inside citizen's groups is scary, whether it's Big Brother's government, or his private business lobby."