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‘Key’ Notes

The Future Through the Past

January 25, 2006
by Howard V. Hendrix

“Oh?” she asked, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. “What are we supposed to be discussing?”

“The history of state security apparatuses. Even just the American ones, if you like.” Karuna eyed him narrowly.

“And why should we talk about that?”

“Because it explains why we shouldn’t trust Indahar. If you want to know what we’re up against, you’ve got to know the history.”

“Yeah?” she said, sounding peeved. “Like what?”

“Like when NSA used its Echelon systems to suck up everybody’s private data and communications, which made the whole secure message-cylinder tech necessary in the first place. Or like when its Operation Shamrock covertly monitored international telegrams sent from the US — for decades.”

“Come on, Don! That’s old-school paranoia!”

“Or the Pentagon’s plan,” he continued, undaunted, “for launching a wave of violent terrorism in D.C., Miami, and New York — Operation Northwoods, the Joint Chiefs called it. American operatives secretly killing scores or hundreds of American citizens and framing the Cubans for it, so the generals could gain public and international support for a war against Castro.”

Karuna shook her head, making her beaded braids click against each other like an upended rainstick.

“During the Kennedy administration! Ancient history of what might have been, half a century ago. It didn’t come to pass.”

“Not in the context of Cuba, no,” Don continued, adamant. “But what about the CIA’s MK Ultra? The 'covert administering' of LSD and dozens of other psychoactive substances to uninformed, unknowing, innocent civilians? Or army intelligence hitting US troops with BZ in the quest for a battlefield hallucinogen? — ”

“That stuff’s not even news anymore,” Karuna said dismissively. “More ancient history.”

“Do you think it’s stopped?”

“Do I think what has stopped?”

“Do you think the government and corporations have stopped drugging people without their knowledge or consent? Do you think they’re not still giving supertryptamine-based drugs to kidnapped ‘suspects’ to make them more compliant?”

“Don, what’s this got to do with us?” she asked, so perfunctorily as to preclude any possibility of an answer. “Let’s change the subject. You’re creeping me out.”

 

This passage of dialog first appeared when The Labyrinth Key first saw print, from Del Rey in April 2004. The passage was actually written two years earlier, in 2002. That earlier draft also included a passage in which an NSA official reminds an FBI official that NSA's jurisdiction does not extend to eavesdropping within the United States. My editor and I later agreed that that earlier draft section, with its discussion of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and surveillance courts, was "too obscure" so we axed it.

Fast forward to 2006. NSA and FISA are now much less obscure, ever since the news broke in the media that the President has ordered the National Security Agency to spy on Americans, in full abrogation of FISA and refutation of Congress's power as legislative branch of the government.

My major print source for descriptions of NSA were two books by investigative journalist James Bamford — his Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets (you'll find both referenced in the Selected Bibliography at the back of Labyrinth Key). Turns out that Bamford is, along with the ACLU, now a party to a suit against the President and NSA. Seems that Mister Bamford has good reason to believe NSA has been spying on him.

My wife sometimes wonders if I'm now on some NSA watchlist. I tell her, "Hey, I'm just a science fiction writer. Surely the powers that be know the difference between fact and fiction."

I wonder, though.

The NSA is a very powerful informational weapon. Like a gun or a sword, what that weapon does depends on what it's aimed at, and who's wielding that weapon. I don't particularly like the fact that the President and his men have turned NSA's Big Ear on Americans. I like even less the fact that they have ignored FISA and that the executive branch has unilaterally assumed powers of the legislative and judicial branches unto itself.

I too well recall the definition of a tyrant: a ruler who not only makes and unmakes the law, but does so in his own and his friends' interest, rather than for the welfare of the people. Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, contended that people create a government as a contract in which the people trade obedience to a sovereign in exchange for protection by that sovereign. But how much obedience are we willing to give in exchange for that supposed protection? How much actual liberty are we willing to give up in exchange for what may be at best only an illusory security?

I'm thinking of creating an index that deals with all the scary stuff — from big rocks out of space, global warming, and earthquakes to terrorist attacks, economic collapses and coup d'etats. I think it would be fun to rank-order this list of all fears — maybe even color-code it like the terrorist-threat level — and gear it both globally and locally. I'd like to call it The Extended Fearcast, but to do it I will need your help. I can't guarantee that the NSA won't be listening in, but I'd really appreciate your input, dear reader.

Keep in touch, and Stay Tuned.

– Howard V. Hendrix

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