morality Archives

“I cannot find a faithful message-bearer, … How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.”

-Cicero

“Who is watching the Watchers?”

― James Hauenstein

Knowledge is power. And when it relates to matters of governance or diplomacy, certain knowledge can be weaponized to great effect. Whether it is used on an enemy or to manipulate a potentially unfriendly citizenry, there is perceived value in understanding what vulnerabilities or sentiments might be exploited to justify reasons of conquest or power.

It is understandable to spy on your enemy and it has long been considered an accepted tool of war and diplomacy. It’s another matter completely to deploy these tactics on one’s own population. It’s such an anathema that even the great strategists like Sun Tzu and Machiavelli rarely spoke on this and Machiavelli said it should only be used in certain circumstances. Nonetheless it has been deployed throughout history by the likes of the Stasi, FBI, KBG and even Rome.

You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Roman courts were filled with deception and intrigue. Its history is littered with stories of people like Sejanus, Tigellinus or Paulus Catena who tried to use deceit to claim or manipulate power. But there are also examples that demonstrate that the intrigue and scheming went beyond the palace walls and extended into streets to impact common citizens as well.

Let’s first discuss why a government might choose to spy on its citizens. From there we will provide examples in both Rome and the US that will have you second guessing your faith in government institutions and promises. So strap on your tinfoil cap and trust no one.

Why spy on your own people?

The reasons are varied but there are circumstances in which a government justifies keeping a close eye on its citizens. Attempts might be made to offer a justification (think Japanese internment camps during WW2) but the ends rarely justify the means and often the collateral damage is a loss of trust by the citizens towards the government. With that in mind below are the most common reasons I can think of.

Neutralizing Political Opposition and Regime Threats– For authoritarian regimes or politically vulnerable governments, espionage is a tool for self-preservation. By monitoring political rivals, dissidents, journalists, and activist groups, the state can preemptively arrest leaders, sabotage campaigns, or blackmail opponents before they gain widespread public support.

Preventing Domestic Terrorism and Violent Extremism– Governments often argue that internal intelligence gathering is essential to national security. Because domestic threats originate from within the population, intelligence agencies monitor communications, financial transactions, and online activities to spot radicalization or operational planning.

Managing Social Unrest and Civil Disobedience– During periods of economic hardship, political tension, or social change, governments use surveillance to monitor public sentiment and track community organizers. Knowing where a protest will gather, who is organizing it, and how many people will attend allows law enforcement to deploy forces, block routes, or arrest leaders preemptively.

Enforcing Ideological, Cultural, or Social Control– Some states view surveillance not just as a reactive security measure, but as a proactive tool for social engineering. By letting citizens know they are constantly monitored, the state encourages self-censorship and conformity to state-approved norms, morals, or ideologies.

Countering Foreign Espionage and Infiltration– Foreign powers frequently attempt to recruit government employees, military personnel, scientists, or corporate executives to steal secrets or sabotage infrastructure. Governments monitor their own workforce and citizens in sensitive positions to detect leaks, espionage, or treason.

Examples of Roman Surveillance

In Rome there was one group that stood out and sent shivers down the spines of the average citizen. That group was the frumentarii. Their origins begin during the early Principate and they formed the backbone of the empire’s primary domestic intelligence network. Our best ancient source for this group is the Historia Augusta. Their duties required extensive travel between Rome and the provinces, and emperors—most notably Hadrian—recognized their potential for internal surveillance across the empire. They were centralized at the Castra Peregrina in Rome. Operating as couriers, tax collectors, and undercover informants, they monitored provincial governors, political dissidents, and ordinary citizens, intercepting communications and reporting potential subversion directly to the emperor.

The Castra Peregrina

One illustration for how this worked comes from the reign of Emperor Hadrian, who formally structured them into a domestic spying network. According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian frequently stunned his friends and senators by casually revealing intimate details about their private lives—such as knowing the exact menu served at an exclusive dinner party or the private contents of a letter a noble received from his wife. The frumentarii achieved this by infiltrating domestic households, intercepting mail carriers, and bribing servants.

Over time, this freedom of movement and unchecked imperial backing transformed the frumentarii into a feared, covert secret police force. Their reputation deteriorated rapidly as officers routinely abused their authority, resorting to extortion, bribery, false accusations, and state-sanctioned assassinations for personal profit. By the late 3rd century AD, public hatred of the frumentarii was so intense that Emperor Diocletian formally disbanded the organization as part of his administrative reforms, though domestic espionage quickly re-emerged under a new civilian bureaucracy known as the Agentes in Rebus.

A notorious example from this later period occurred in 353 AD under Emperor Constantius II, who dispatched the previously mentioned Paulus—nicknamed “Catena” (“The Chain”) for his skill in weaving inescapable webs of accusations—to Britain to purge supporters of the defeated usurper Magnentius. Leveraging his authority over the imperial postal network (cursus publicus) and immunity from local courts, Paulus aggressively expanded his mandate, fabricating treason charges against innocent local nobles, confiscating their estates, and dragging prominent citizens away in chains. His reign of terror illustrated how Late Roman state intelligence had transformed into an untouchable, pervasive political police force that answered solely to the emperor.

The United States of Surveillance

In spite of all of the talk of openness and liberty, the US has its own storied history of spycraft and questionable monitoring of its citizens. Activities have ranged from the patriotic (Washington’s Culper Spy Ring during the Revolutionary War) to the salacious (J Edgar Hoover and his wire taps) to the down right scary (Edward Snowden’s uncovering of the NSA domestic monitoring programs like PRISM). We’re certainly well behind China and its Social Credit system, but recent revelations make it seem like the US is trying to catch up.

Since we have far more to work with in the US, let’s walk you through some interesting and terrifying examples, using the standard reasons from earlier, of how the American government, through agencies like the FBI, NSA, or CIA has spied on its people or adversaries. It might have you rethinking how the 4th Amendment or Privacy Act of 1974 are enforced.

Neutralizing Political Opposition and Regime Threats– This is a sad one and unfortunately there are various examples. Most notable is COINTELPRO, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program and it actively spied on, wiretapped, and sought to neutralize political dissidents, civil rights leaders (most notably Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), anti-war activists, and socialist organizations. The goal was explicitly to disrupt, misinform, and prevent the growth of political groups deemed threats to the existing social and political order.

Preventing Domestic Terrorism and Violent Extremism– Following the September 11 attacks, the National Security Agency (NSA) secretly instituted bulk collection of millions of Americans’ call detail records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of FISA (e.g., the PRISM program), arguing that mass data sweeps were necessary to map terror networks before attacks occurred.

Managing Social Unrest and Civil Disobedience– During the widespread civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, and National Guard deployed aerial reconnaissance aircraft, drones, and real-time social media monitoring tools to track crowd movements and identify key organizers during racial justice protests across major U.S. cities. This also happened extensively during the Vietnam era.

Enforcing Ideological, Cultural, or Social Control– The easy example is Joseph McCarthy. The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, along with

Mr. McCarthy

congressional committees like the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), wiretapped and monitored suspected communists, intellectuals, civil rights figures, and Hollywood creators to enforce Cold War ideological loyalty and force political self-censorship across public life.

Countering Foreign Espionage and Infiltration– There are many examples of counter intelligence efforts against Russia in capturing people like Robert Hanssen. I’d like to share an example that illustrates that even our “allies” spy on us. This one comes from Israel and Jonathan Pollard. He was a a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who was arrested in 1985 for spying on behalf of Israel. He passed thousands of top-secret documents—primarily regarding Middle Eastern military intelligence—to Israeli officials, resulting in one of the most high-profile espionage cases in U.S. history.

In the US there’s the notion of the deep state that has left the realm of the conspiracy theorist and entered the mainstream through revelations as varied as CIA disclosures to the Epstein scandal. At its core is the idea that the real power in the US government is the permanent bureaucracy and this is controlled by powerful entities (Finance, Pharma, Defence, etc.) to push policies and programs that support their interests. This capture extends to the legislature through lobbying and is facilitated through things like the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United. These tools of surveillance can be deployed by the “deep state” to monitor and challenge threats to their pursuits.

Where do we go from here?

We are still an open society where the First Amendment is still widely respected. But the rapid advance of AI and other technologies should be forcing us to have necessary and uncomfortable conversations about the roles and limits of surveillance at home and abroad. If these tools are not deployed without the necessary guardrails then trust will erode and we very well could be living in Orwell’s 1984.

Additional resources:

NSA Stellar Wind Program- link
How the Frumentarii inspired modern UK spy agencies- link
BBC article tracking government spying through the ages- link
The suspicious deaths of reporters like Michael Hastings and Gary Webb

Bonus Material:

John Kiriaku on CIA’s Vault 7 program

“Is it possible that you are still seeking games, when your graves are already dug? … The Roman world is dying, and yet it laughs. We are in the very jaws of death, and we are playing.”

– Salvian

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

-CS Lewis in the Abolition of Man

You can tell a lot about a society by the values that they claim to uphold. These values permeate myths, stories, and the laws that govern. These values are also a measuring stick for observers to determine whether or not the society is justified in its success or destined for failure. In the later Roman Empire no figure better served as a barometer to Roman morality than Salvian.

We will spend some time understanding his critiques of late Roman morality. His perspective was unique. It provides a vivid, bottom-up perspective on the structural rot of late Rome—such as the rise of the Bagaudae (peasant rebels) and the severe social inequality that made the empire indefensible. He was considered the “Jeremiah” of this time and his critiques of the decadence of his time can be used as a point of comparison with our day.

Calling out the hypocrisies of Rome

Salvian strongly believed that the Western Empire’s imminent collapse was not a failure of divine protection, but a direct consequence of its profound moral bankruptcy. In his eyes, the nominal Christianity of the Roman populace was a hollow facade masking rampant corruption, greed, and debauchery. He famously contrasted the behavior of his fellow citizens with that of the invading Germanic tribes; while the “barbarians” were pagans or heretics, Salvian asserted they possessed a natural virtue, loyalty, and chastity that shamed the Empire.

He was particularly horrified by the psychological denial of the Roman elites, who continued to obsess over blood-soaked gladiatorial games and theater even as their cities faced siege, writing bitterly that the Roman world was laughing while it died. He fiercely condemned local officials and tax collectors (curiales) as internal tyrants who engineered tax policies to protect their own fortunes while driving widows, orphans, and the poor into destitution.

Lerins Abbey, where Salvian studied

This institutionalized cruelty completely severed the bond between the state and its subjects. Salvian documented the ultimate indictment of Roman civilization: that the oppression of the imperial administration had become so intolerable that thousands of ordinary Roman citizens actively chose to flee imperial territory, preferring to live in dignity under barbarian rule than suffer “barbarous inhumanity” under the guise of Roman justice.

I wonder if Salvian was familiar with the great tale of Marcus Curtius who selflessly offered himself as a sacrifice to satisfy the demands of Hades after the earthquake of 382BC or the willingness of Cincinnatus to return to the plough after his great victories. These stories captured traditional Roman virtues that were likely close to extinct in his era. He must have bristled that there were very few leaders who lived up to these once common Roman virtues.

We can conclude this section with a couple of quotes that might resonate with a modern audience.

“They [the rich] alone are exempt from the tax, but they alone have the right to impose it. They make decrees that the poor must pay, while they themselves refuse to bear any part of the burden. The wealth of the few is bought by the destruction of the many.” — Book V, 7

“The Roman world is dying, and yet it laughs… We are being crushed by the judgment of Heaven, and yet we do not feel our misery. Our houses are burning, our fields are being devastated, our cities are falling, and we are still looking for games. In the very jaws of death, the Roman people are laughing.” — Book VI, 12

Modern day hypocrites?

One can only wonder what Salvian would think if he was placed in America today. Relative to the rest of the Western World, we (The United States) are among the most religious and Christianity is still the predominant belief. But how would he react if he were placed in one of the stadium seats on a Sunday morning to be solicited by Kenneth Copeland or Joel Osteen?

To help us with this exercise let’s first list the core principles that Salvian championed. Using this book De gubernatione Dei as our primary source we can conclude that these are the things that were closest to his heart.

Hand of God- Active involvement of a divine source in the affairs of man
Moral action- Faith without works doesn’t cut it, we need to practice Christianity
Hatred of greed- Specifically how the wealthy focused only on themselves to the detriment of everyone else
Universal human dignity- We are all children of God and have basic human rights
Simplicity- A life free of unnecessary distraction and material possession

He might feel similarly to how he felt in 5th century Rome. I’d bet he would be reminded of Matthew 15:8 and its searing message “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” We speak of Jesus but do our actions really reflect his Gospel? You could argue that they don’t and they are manifest in some of these modern corruptions:

Churches that exploit their non-profit status and are run more like profit driven businesses than true charities. Take a look at the work offered by these guys to get a sense of what I mean.
Politicians and other figures using the name of Christ to justify actions (war, division,corruption) that so clearly contradict the teachings found within his Gospel.
A disintegration of the civic institutions (Church, bowling leagues, Rotary club, etc.) that once bound our communities together. Read this book to get a sense of what has happened and how it impacts society.
Identity politics and a demonization by these groups towards those who don’t agree with their positions.
A mindset where profit is the ultimate measure of worth and humility is considered weakness.

I could keep adding to the list but you get the point. While there is still good in the world it seems like it is being snuffed out by forces driven by greed and power. Yes, this has been the case since the beginning of time but advances in technology seem to enhance their nefarious efforts while also convincing a growing number of people that these forces are more powerful than the divine.

Now western Rome was already sufficiently weakened by many forces well beyond moral deficiencies by the time Salvian rolled around. Many of these contributing factors have already been discussed in previous posts. But he was right in that there is a real loss when a society abandons the values that it once held. America is at a crossroads and hopefully we can strike a balance between preserving our core values while still working towards smoothing out the rough edges found in our imperfections.

Additional Resources:

Daily Stoic podcast featuring Barry Strauss that discusses factors (collapse of trust, duty, and shared values) leading up to the fall of the Republic- link
Recent Gallup poll on morality in America- link
Cato Institute argument claiming increased Government leads to decreased morality- link

Tag Archive for: morality

Eyes on you: How surveillance was used in Rome and is used today to manage citizens and enemies