In Whom Will We Trust?

On Friday morning at the Department of Justice, President Barack Obama announced reforms to the National Security Agency (NSA), the activities of which have caused a lot of disturbance ever since they were revealed by Edward Snowden.

The fact itself that Obama is defending the NSA is proof that Snowden’s actions have not only done damage, but has also brought some benefits, as maintained by the authorities. The thing is that Obama is not moving very quickly with the reform agenda. He highlights that the whole of NSA’s activity plays a crucial role in fighting terrorism and assures safety to the United States. Of course, it will be continued, as no cases of abuse have been reported; the president only admits that there exists a risk of abuse.

In order to exclude any risk, Obama announced a few moves, the most important of which is judicial review. However, it will not be a real court case, as demanded by the committee of experts. The review will be conducted by a special secret court. Will we know anything about considerations and opinions of the court? New executive orders will set appropriate boundaries on the court proceedings, according to Obama.

Right proceedings — what a beautiful legal term. By chance, Obama’s speech coincides with the controversies that arose in Poland around the decision to discontinue the investigation into irregularities detected in the report on the verification of military information services. The two cases don’t have much in common. I just want to illustrate how differently we consider “right proceedings.” Eventually, the attorney who discontinued the investigation judged that the author of the report was not “a public officer” as per a relevant article in criminal law. Although he held the position of deputy minister, in the case of the report he only performed “a public function,” and that is a great difference. Therefore, he is not responsible for the bad consequences.

What’s my point? The secret assembly that is going to judge the NSA activity can be composed of people who are so in love with bugs that they will approve of anything that guarantees safety. Control exercised by such people will be simply illusory.