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Liberal or Conservative, You Should Worry About the Government Targeting Your Data

September 22, 2017
Staff

WRITER

The IRS has targeted conservative groups in the past, infamously taking aim at Tea Party nonprofits. Last month, the site-hosting platform DreamHost reported that the government wanted more than 1.3 million IP addresses for people who visited a site created to organize an anti-Trump riot on Inauguration Day.

Whether you’re closer to being a Tea Party protestor or an anti-Trump demonstrator, this kind of big government should scare you. Glenn Beck talked with tech journalist Saul Hansell about the dangers of having our entire lives online on Thursday’s “The Glenn Beck Radio Program.”

“Should the government be able to have the names, the IP addresses and the search history of everyone who went to that website?” Glenn asked. “This is what’s being debated right now.”

The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” listing “probable cause” as the exception. But what happens in a world where so many details of our lives are in the digital cloud, not in our homes?

“There’s a line here that has become very, very difficult in a world of digital information,” Hansell said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Do you remember during the Tea Party movement at its height, where the IRS started playing games with people's information? And imagine if during the -- the Tea Party days, if you had gone to the 9/12 Project and you had just searched or you had gone to a Tea Party website and you had just searched and you had maybe posted. And then some people go out and they start to do something violent.

Should the government be able to have the names, the IP addresses, and the search history of everyone who went to that website?

This is what's being debated right now. But it's being debated not with a 9/12 Project or a Tea Party project. It's something that would make a lot of people on the right happy, I guess. Disrupt J20. That was the group that disrupted the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Now the government has arrested 200 people under felony rioting. But the government wants the IP addresses, the emails, and the history of anyone who engaged with these people through the website, Disrupt J20. Should they have that right? And how would you feel if the situation were reversed?

STU: We've talked a lot about these lines and how they're drawn with the government and how it relates to your data. Wanted to get someone who really knows these things, the ins and outs of it. Saul Hansel is a former technology reporter at the New York Times. He's now the managing director at Media Paradox Labs.

GLENN: So, Saul, you wrote about this in 2008, about your -- your op-ed was, one subpoena is all it takes to reveal your online life.

We're entering a new world here. Are we not?

SAUL: The world even in the nine years since I wrote that, the amount of information about you that is online somewhere, sent up by your cell phone about your location, all the questions you ask Siri, all sorts of other things, is exponentially higher.

So what you said at the introduction is I think critical here: We've got to be very thoughtful in drawing some lines so that prosecutors can do the right things, but not be searching everything about everybody, which is available to them now.

GLENN: So, is all, here's the problem that I think we have in society right now: We are divided into two camps. And I think they are bogus camps. Both of them. I think they both are in many ways opting for the same thing. Because when it's their side that has the power, they're all for it. When they're on the receiving side, they're all against it.

We have a job to do to try to convince people on both sides, you don't want to give the power like this to the government, ever.

How do we do that?

SAUL: You know, I think that the way you introduce this, where you said to people who might have identified with one group and against the other, that things switch, right? We know that there is a history of governments snooping on people, where they shouldn't. The FBI, you know, tracking the extra marital affairs of Martin Luther King. All kinds of things where governments do what they shouldn't do. That seems bad. But there are really horrible criminals that blow things up and kill people, and that's bad. And the art here, right? The Fourth Amendment says, the right of people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated without probable cause. So there's a -- a line here that has become very, very difficult in a world of digital information.

GLENN: We were -- you know, the Fourth Amendment was written at a time when people were using quickly pens. And so it's easy for people to say, "Well, no, I wrote that. And that's my paper." What are you doing? You can't go through my desk. You just can't come in here.

However, everything we have -- literally everything we have and done and thought and searched and questioned, everything is now up in a cloud. And it is stored forever. And there is some disconnect with people on the Fourth Amendment, if it's on the cloud. And people will make the excuse, well, I'm not looking for some -- I'm not doing anything wrong.

I don't have a problem if they look at everything. That's insanity.

SAUL: You know, the law has made a distinction. Right? Between things that are public, things that are private and personal -- you know, in your house. And things that are sort of intermediate. Like a business record.

So a cop can go up to a dry cleaner and say, you know, with a certain amount of subpoena power, did so-and-so dry clean a suit at this date? A much higher standard applies to going into your house and looking in the pockets of your suit, right? The business record was seen as something that's not quite public, but not a secret.

The problem is, as you say, we're not printing our secrets, things you might not even keep in your desk drawer, you might keep in your Gmail account or in your, you know, online files. Or are in the photographs that you don't even know have been backed up to somebody's server. And so at a minimum, I think the policy issue is, should we treat the cloud extensions of our life with the same protections that we treat things in our homes, in our personal privacy?

That's a question that I don't think law enforcement wants to ask. Because they like it this way. They get more stuff than ever. But I think it's a good discussion to have.

STU: And it's a tough thing, is all. Because if there is an attack. If there is some crime, people are going to want it solved. They're going to want the law enforcement to have these tools at their disposal.

SAUL: Yep.

STU: And it's always going to be more powerful to say, this person could have been saved. Their life could have been saved if we had these powers.

SAUL: Yep.

STU: And I don't know the story of, well, the government searched too much through my Gmail is going to convince people the other way.

How do you get people kind of across that line and to understand that it's really a bigger issue than that?

Because this is everything you've ever thought. They can prove in lawsuits, things that you made in jokes. They can tie to whatever they're accusing you of now. There's a real big consequence of this.

SAUL: Right. You know, Glenn said earlier, you know, people say, my life is an open book. What does it matter? And, you know, that's true. You know, most people are really boring most of the time.

GLENN: Yes.

SAUL: But every now and then, right? Some set of things happens that you either have a real secret. Maybe even not --

GLENN: Or, you know, may I suggest this? Saul, I know I'm different. But I don't think -- there's probably just more frequency of this. Because of what I do, probably because of what you do, I'm searching for all kinds of crazy stuff.

SAUL: Sure.

GLENN: And I'm looking up mass murder and everything else. And you could, if you had access to all of my life, you could assemble things and say, well, look at the picture we have here, Mr. Beck. And I would then be in the situation where I would have to explain, no, that's not what it is. That's not -- no. And so it -- you don't want people to be able to come in and assemble parts of your life, even if you don't have something to hide, which we all do. Even if you don't have something to hide, when somebody has all of your information, they can assemble it in very nefarious ways, should they choose.

SAUL: Yes. So they can find, you know, inadvertent things or misleading things. And we also have a general, you know, standard here, that cops need to know what they're looking for, and they can't use a search for one thing as a way to fish around to see -- you know, there must be something this guy did wrong. Right?

And what you described is absolutely true. What they're going to do in this case -- right? Because there's a -- there's supposedly a compromise the courts are imposing. But I think it has the risk you're pointing out. Which is the government is going to go search through a bunch of emails among people who are involved in this, you know, disrupt website for certain terms. Bombs or violence or riot or whatever they want. And then they get to read those emails.

And guess what, those are emails by people who they didn't expect and may not, in fact -- maybe have used the word riot in a completely different context. And suddenly the emails are read. And somebody might notice something else. And it can be used by, you know, the government to harass the centers or do all kinds of bad things. So I -- what Stu said. Yes. If I was searching every email that was sent by anybody in the world in the two weeks before 9/11 and maybe I could figure out who did something, you know, or I searched for key words, you know, you might have prevented something really bad. But is that a price you're willing to pay to let the government go on phishing?

GLENN: No. No. It's not for me.

I was -- I had a conversation with Eric Schmidt from Google.

SAUL: Yeah.

GLENN: And he said -- and he's said this publicly a few times. I don't remember the year. But I think it was like 2025 or something like that. He said, "People's lives will be so open and so destroyed by what they have put out online, just haphazardly, or not even thinking, that they'll actually have to change their name by the time they're 25 years old."

I don't think people understand the world is changing and how dramatically things are going to change.

SAUL: You know, I have teenage daughters. And basically, my advice to them is be careful about secrets. You can have some. But you shouldn't have very many. You should -- you know, think about them carefully, and preserve them. And you should make them only analogue. Right? Once you make it digital, it's not a secret.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.