Jeb Bush: Americans too concerned over civil liberties

At a national security forum in South Carolina, Jeb Bush declared that Americans are too concerned over civil liberties violations.

“There’s a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job,” Bush said. “I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way.”

According to the Associated Press, Bush said that private technology firms need to help intelligence agencies fight “evildoers.”

That Bush could claim civil liberties are on an upswing against NSA and American intelligence agencies is laughable.

Widely touted reforms do little to change American surveillance policy. As ACLU Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani noted, the USA Freedom Act, passed in June, “marks the first time since passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 that Congress has taken steps to restrict — rather than expand — the government’s surveillance authority.”

The NSA, CIA, and FBI have broad surveillance powers that tend to become disclosed rarely and reluctantly. The balance between privacy and security, however, is a misleading way to discuss issues of American surveillance, as the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez has covered.

Security and privacy issues aren’t always zero sum. More privacy and less surveillance doesn’t necessarily mean the country is less secure, just as more security doesn’t necessarily mean the government needs to commit civil-liberty violations.

Indeed, as the AP noted, “The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent bipartisan agency, declared NSA’s phone records collections program illegal in 2014, and a federal court of appeals reached the same conclusion earlier this year. A May analysis from the Justice Department found that FBI agents interviewed by the inspector general’s office ‘did not identify any major case developments’ that came from using Section 215 that allowed the bulk records collection.”

Blanket approval of security agency intelligence gathering shows a marked disregard for efficiency and civil liberties.

Bush does not stand alone among the 2016 GOP field in his interpretation of privacy against security.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made similar arguments in a spat with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) during the Republican presidential candidate debate. Bush also criticized technology companies for their use of encryption, complaining that encryption makes it harder for the government to keep Americans safe.

Illustrating the issue with pitting privacy against security, relaxing private encryption or adding some sort of “back door” provision for government access, those demands will weaken privacy and make American citizens more vulnerable to criminals.

Beyond the NSA and civil liberties, Bush also addressed foreign policy, suggesting that the U.S. should station more troops in eastern European countries to respond to Russian policy toward Ukraine.