Samhain Winter Moon
Snowden did us all a good turn. I don’t see others saying it, so I will. It’s no accident that a US Judge for the first time applied the 4th amendment to the NSA’s actions. Without Snowden’s leaks we would have no idea how far this opaque bureaucracy had gone in eroding our privacy rights. We could not have a debate about the reasonable limits of super snooping with cyber tools. Though computer surveillance was not imaginable in the Revolutionary era, abuses perpetrated by the powerful were.
Franklin’s famous quip applies here: “They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” the original quote according to this wiki site.
Also, how about those Catholics? Did John Nienstedt really touch a confirmand’s butt? Who knows? What is known is that the Nixon lesson is difficult to learn for those in positions of power. The cover up is often worse than the crime. That’s true in this case.
Why? Well, covering up sexual abuse by priests is on the face not as bad as the act itself; but, when that cover up allows known offenders to circulate through different parishes and ministries with the laity ignorant, then the cover up facilitates the abuser, gives them opportunities to offend they would not have had in a transparent system.
This is an old boy’s club where a wink here and a nod there pass for scrutiny. Much like the NSA.
One more place where secrecy and male domination protect abusers. The military. When rapists know their crimes will go up the chain of command, up the ladder in a buddy system, then the logic of deterrence due to exposure lessens. A lot.
In all three of these large institutions run by men the rationalizations of the powerful take precedent over the needs of the powerless. This is sexism in the service of sexual abuse and the erosion of personal privacy. Considered from one perspective sexual abuse is, too, a dramatic case of the erosion of personal privacy.
Where is the Ed Snowden in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul? They need to step forward, files and computer discs in hand. We need them.
