What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how futile their actions seem in hindsight.
History probably would have ended up in a similar way if Hoover had not devoted so many resources to spying on Viet Nam protestors and counter culture revolutionaries. He was really pursuing his lifelong obsession with communism, which was another political movement that probably would have died without so much government surveillance. His spying didn't do anything to dissuade Martin Luther King or other members of the Civil Rights movement. All that effort and violation of privacy for a difficult to discern impact on history.
Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade. We just wound up in the same situation 40 years later and will most likely end up with the same results. It takes a mountain of courage to steal from the freaking FBI, and that group of people deserve credit for standing up for what they believed in. If only their risk produced a more appreciable reward for society.
I fear a never ending cycle of surveillance and protest. Chicken and the egg. The stakes seem higher now, on both sides, but there are no guarantees that we won't go through the whole process again to achieve the same non-result. We need to figure out how to use the political process instead of theft to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't like. Or else we'll be reading this same story again decades from now.
> What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how futile their actions seem in hindsight.
To quote Chuck Palahniuk: "On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
If you give history enough time, it will always look like little has been gained in terms of eradicating oppression. Sure, some forms of oppression don't exist anymore, but society evolves other forms as a replacement.
I don't honestly believe we'll ever "figure out how to use the political process [...] to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't like." I think history is like a power game where rules keep changing over time because one side keeps finding ways to rig the game. Sooner or later, there's enough evidence that the game is rigged and the other side realizes that it's futile to keep playing by the same rules and finds a new way to fight back.
You are quite right, and there is an older commentator than Palahniuk to invoke. The original quote comes from John Maynard Keynes in his 1923 "Tract on Monetary Reform":
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.
Pray that we will always have someone standing up against the surveillance state.
A lot was gained. Proof. And continued exposure of what government's really do with all that power: they protect it. That knowledge is always there, all you have to do is read. Not everyone does, but it's enough that it's there.
"Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade."
I think what they did was both brave and highly valuable. They went through great risks to ignite a spark among their fellow citizens, so they would join them in opposing these practices.
It's a shame that the majority of their fellow citizens decided to ignore the problem. I too fear that we're going into "never ending cycle of surveillance and protest", but because democracy requires active participation from citizens, and these rarely do anything but complain and, sometimes, vote.
The depths of watergate were pretty bad, but most people concentrate on just the burglary. The fact that the president was using government forces as his personal bag men, bribing people with campaign funds, using the IRS to harass political enemies etc. was extraordinarily bad. Democracy poisoning bad.
there are more than those two sides. this definitely altered the balance between the left and right in the US. this lead to shutting down COINTELPRO, the PRISM of that age.
It seems axiomatic that there will be a never ending cycle of contention regarding the limits of government power. The government, the citizens, and lawbreakers are all in essence living beings, and as such will compete for resources. It's your role as a citizen to push back.
And the Church Commission, a partial result of these documents coming to light, had real consequences, and imposed real limits on government power.
History probably would have ended up in a similar way if Hoover had not devoted so many resources to spying on Viet Nam protestors and counter culture revolutionaries. He was really pursuing his lifelong obsession with communism, which was another political movement that probably would have died without so much government surveillance. His spying didn't do anything to dissuade Martin Luther King or other members of the Civil Rights movement. All that effort and violation of privacy for a difficult to discern impact on history.
Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade. We just wound up in the same situation 40 years later and will most likely end up with the same results. It takes a mountain of courage to steal from the freaking FBI, and that group of people deserve credit for standing up for what they believed in. If only their risk produced a more appreciable reward for society.
I fear a never ending cycle of surveillance and protest. Chicken and the egg. The stakes seem higher now, on both sides, but there are no guarantees that we won't go through the whole process again to achieve the same non-result. We need to figure out how to use the political process instead of theft to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't like. Or else we'll be reading this same story again decades from now.