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Sometimes when I hear public officials speaking out in defense of NSA spying, I can鈥檛 help thinking, even if just for a moment, 鈥渨hat if the NSA has something on that person and that鈥檚 why he or she is saying this?鈥�

Of course it鈥檚 natural, when people disagree with you, to at least briefly think, 鈥渢hey couldn鈥檛 possibly really believe that, there must be some outside power forcing them to take that position.鈥� Mostly I do not believe that anything like that is now going on.

But I cannot be 100% sure, and therein lies the problem. The breadth of the NSA鈥檚 newly revealed capabilities makes the emergence of such suspicions in our society inevitable. Especially given that we are far, far away from having the kinds of oversight mechanisms in place that would provide ironclad assurance that these vast powers won鈥檛 be abused. And that highlights the highly corrosive nature of allowing the NSA such powers. Everyone has dark suspicions about their political opponents from time to time, and Americans are highly distrustful of government in general. When there is any opening at all for members of the public to suspect that officials from the legislative and judicial branches could be vulnerable to leverage from secretive agencies within the executive branch鈥攁nd when those officials can even suspect they might be subject to leverage鈥攖hat is a serious problem for our democracy.

There has already been prominent speculation about this threat. David Sirota explicitly mulled the subject in this (paywalled) , as have writers at and . Whistleblower Russell Tice has also that while at the agency he saw wiretap information for members of Congress and the judiciary firsthand. Such fears explain why it is considered an especially serious matter any time elected or judicial officials are eavesdropped upon. The New York Times in 2009 that some NSA officials had tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant. Members of Congress (and perhaps the judiciary) surely also noted a Washington Post based on Snowden documents that the NSA had intercepted a 鈥渓arge number鈥� of calls from the Washington DC area code due to a 鈥減rogramming error.鈥�

Dark suspicions about the NSA will also draw powerful support from the historical record. Already a sitting U.S. Senator has the memory of J. Edgar Hoover as a means of expressing misgivings about NSA spying. It can be useful to recall the history with a little detail. Journalist Ronald Kessler the former FBI director鈥檚 M.O. in his book on Hoover:

鈥淭he moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator,鈥� said William Sullivan, who became the number three official in the bureau under Hoover, 鈥渉e鈥檇 send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that 鈥榳e鈥檙e in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter. But we wanted you to know this. We realize you鈥檇 want to know it.鈥� Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator鈥檚 right in his pocket.鈥�

Lawrence J. Heim, who was in the Crime Records Division, confirmed to me that the bureau sent agents to tell members of Congress that Hoover had picked up derogatory information on them.

鈥淗e [Hoover] would send someone over on a very confidential basis,鈥� Heim said. As an example, if the Metropolitan Police in Washington had picked up evidence of homosexuality, 鈥渉e [Hoover] would have him say, 鈥楾his activity is known by the Metropolitan Police Department and some of our informants, and it is in your best interests to know this.鈥� But nobody has ever claimed to have been blackmailed. You can deduce what you want from that.鈥�

Even in 1945, a month after taking office, President Truman of Hoover鈥檚 FBI, 鈥淲e want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail.鈥� Two years later he , 鈥渁ll Congressmen and Senators are afraid of him.鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 just the FBI. In the 1970s, for example, the 鈥渋ntelligence鈥� division of the Chicago Police Department similarly engaged in widespread institutionalized blackmail efforts. 鈥淎 principal tactic of this operation was the dissemination of file material for the purpose of doing damage to targets held in disfavor,鈥� writes Frank Donner in his chronicle of Cold War-era police repression, Protectors of Privilege. To take just one example: the police carried out intensive surveillance of the personal life of the director of the Community Renewal Society (CRS), a do-good religious organization aimed at improving inner-city life鈥攁s well as hundreds of others involved with the group. The reason? Because the organization had 鈥渧iews and goals diametrically opposed to those of the administration of this city.鈥� A columnist quoted an unnamed insider as saying about one target, 鈥淭hey wanted to see if they could get something on him that was dirty鈥� something out of his personal life that would be used to discredit him鈥�. There wasn鈥檛 a move he made that they didn鈥檛 know about.鈥� Documents later revealed that at least some of these investigations were ordered directly by the mayor鈥檚 office.

When a coalition of civic, religious, and community groups in Chicago called the AER started a campaign to uncover and litigate against these practices, police fought back. As Donner , Chicago鈥檚 police superintendent, testifying in 1978, issued a cry that sounds all-too-familiar to our ears today:

the superintendent charged that the lawsuit had rendered the Chicago Police Department 鈥渧irtually helpless to protect the city from terrorist activity.鈥� In fact, at the time the charges were made, the [Chicago Police Department鈥檚] generously funded intelligence division was operating eight intelligence squads, including one specializing in terrorism.

Although Chicago under Mayor Richard J. Daley was the worst, Donner shows that these kinds of abuses by 鈥渋ntelligence units鈥� were widespread during the Cold War (and before that, during the labor battles of the early 20th century).

If we allow the NSA to retain the powers it wants, it鈥檚 not at all crazy to worry about how those powers could be used now or in the future to grab even more frightening power through blackmail of ostensible overseers. And it doesn鈥檛 require crude, explicit blackmail to affect behavior and confer power through personal information; even the vaguest threat or intimation of eavesdropping and exposure can introduce substantial chilling effects, even on those who may think they have 鈥�nothing to hide.鈥�

In many ways such fears, although often unspoken, lie at the core of what so many people find objectionable about allowing government agencies such vast eavesdropping powers. The understanding that personal information about people can confer leverage over those people is at the heart of the privacy issue.

And again, even in the absence of any actual malfeasance, suspicion of such is itself a problem.

If there鈥檚 a silver lining to this, it鈥檚 the fact that (as I wrote about here) when it comes to privacy, good policy often emerges only when politicians and other policymakers start to feel personally threatened by its violation. Maybe as members of Congress and others start to live their lives under the cloud of (even theoretically possible) NSA surveillance, will we see the strong response that is needed.