Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege [View all]

[jaysunb]

Tim Wise

It’s not that I’m not angry.

It’s not that I’m not disturbed, even horrified by the fact that my government thinks it appropriate to spy on people, monitoring their phone calls — to whom we speak and when — among other tactics, all in the supposed service of the national interest.

That any government thinks it legitimate to so closely monitor its people is indicative of the inherent sickness of nation-states, made worse in the modern era, where the power to intrude into the most private aspects of our lives is more possible than ever, thanks to the data-gathering techniques made feasible by technological advance.

That said, I also must admit to a certain nonchalance in the face of the recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s snooping into phone records, and the dust-up over the leaking of the NSA’s program by Ed Snowden. And as I tried to figure out why I wasn’t more animated upon hearing the revelations — and, likewise, why so many others were — it struck me. Those who are especially chapped about the program, about the very concept of their government keeping tabs on them — in effect profiling them as potential criminals, as terrorists — are almost entirely those for whom shit like this is new: people who have never before been presumed criminal, up to no good, or worthy of suspicion.
In short, they are mostly white. And male. And middle-class or above. And most assuredly not Muslim.

http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/#more-2984