Editorial:
Surveillance,
Corruption,
and
the
War
on
Drugs
2/6/98
This week in New York, 200 people came to Washington Square Park to protest the installation of two surveillance cameras there, which are to be monitored on an ongoing basis by police. The cameras mark Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's latest attempt to impose his will and control over a drug market which has, for over 60 years, made a mockery of all attempts to enforce it out of existence. Giuliani's recent ascension into the ranks of "up and comer" on the national political scene makes it all but certain that such tactics, employed in the cause of New York City's much talked-about escalation in the War on Drugs, will go neither unnoticed nor unduplicated by mayors of cities around the country, quaint concerns over civil liberties notwithstanding. In the midst of a war, especially a war fought primarily at home against an enemy which integrates itself as seamlessly into the day to day life of our cities as the drug trade, it is oftentimes difficult to remember, much less take seriously, the admonitions of our founding fathers against the ceding of excessive powers to the State. Rudy Giuliani, for instance, former prosecutor, cannot seem to grasp the unease with which people regard the expansion of such powers. "Freedom is authority" he once said, without a hint of irony, before going on to explain that society must be kept under control by government in order to make it safe for people to exercise their liberties. Perhaps Mr. Giuliani has not read Orwell. Or, more disturbingly, perhaps he has. But despite the eerie silence which has marked our society's headlong rush toward the day when all public activity (and here we use the word "public" in the broadest possible sense) will be closely monitored and controlled by authorities whose mission it is to protect us from consensual drug transactions, the warning signs abound. In late January, 44 armed officers of the state of Ohio were arrested and charged with corruption. Their alleged acts included stealing and re-selling drugs, protecting criminal gangs and obstructing investigations. Around the same time, 250 high-ranking officers of Scotland Yard, one of the world's most respected and loyal forces, were alleged to have committed essentially the same offenses on a larger scale. The week before that, the Tory Party in England was accused of accepting a donation of more than a million dollars from a known drug trafficker. And in America, questions still abound regarding connections between Nicaraguan drug traffickers, the CIA, and the Bush administration. These are but a few in a long line of Prohibition-related corruption cases which date back to a time when the prohibited intoxicants came in bottles, rather than vials. The Drug War, like all Prohibitions of popular goods, presents a singularly dangerous double-edged sword. On the one side, its enforcement demands an expansion and accumulation of powers in the hands of agents of the state, and of the state itself. These powers, eagerly sought and greedily expanded, are predicated on the enforcement of a set of laws which are said to represent the last line of defense between a civilized society and an imponderable abyss. On the other, the lucrative markets which are created by the policy are among the most corrupting influences ever encountered in the history of governance. And corruption itself, once ensconced in the culture of power, is not limited to its original terms. Rather it infects the very essence of leadership, blurring lines and undercutting principles, until there are no rules left which are unimpeachable in the quest to maintain authority and increase the wealth of the infected. It is an explosive and a worrisome mix. And most worrisome of all, perhaps, is that the siren song of the prohibitionist rhetoric is so seductive that even the free citizens of America are lured to devalue their liberties, along with the wisdom handed down to them by their storied founders. Politicians, by their very nature, know well the allure of the sirens. "Trust us" they call, "and we will protect you." But sirens never change. And following their voices in search of soothing security brings us ever-closer to the jagged rocks of totalitarianism. Prohibition insures that the hands into which we are placing our liberties are ever more likely to get dirty. There are, in the world, a few people who are not corruptible at some price. But in determining the wisdom of handing over our freedoms to the state, we ought not assume its agents to be among them. Adam J. Smith
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