Welcome to post-9/11 America. First item on the now-unchecked Bush administration's agenda: Homeland Security. Such comforting words. Wonder what they mean... (Before we get started: remember a few weeks back when Republicans complained that Democrats were drudging up old fogeys like Mondale and Lautenberg? At least none of them were felons taking credit for secret wars while plotting to eliminate all privacy in America.) Here's how it goes, in the words of perhaps the most respected right-wing columnist in America. Welcome to 1984, folks. Less than twenty years late: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html You Are a Suspect By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON — If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you — passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance — and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks. Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua. A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing. This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American. Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight. He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans. When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president. This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act. Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear. The Latin motto over Poindexter"s new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia" — "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.
This is where Ref's Constructionist Party would say: "Hi...remember this pesky little thing called the Fourth Amendment? We're willing to give up some freedoms to ensure safety...but that's just too much...WAY too much."
Word, Ref. Too bad there's no one left in Congress to oppose it. And the ones who would only have fillibuster left as a defense. And they wouldn't want to be obstructionists, right?
I disagree. The Republicans elected this go around tend to the more moderate side of the party. Don't be surprised to see this opposed by members of both sides of the aisle...not unanimously...but the opposition will be there. BTW...this is the second thread I have mentioned my Constructionist Party idea in...wanna join?
We'll see about the Homeland Security thing. It's Bush's first stated priority and he and Congress are very excited about gettin stuff done. I'd be extremely surprised to find that they fought him on his first major legislation in the new session. I'm sorry, but I don't think I can join that Constructionist Party. I think the Constitution, having been written many, many years ago (by well-meaning slave owners no less), could use a few more revisions. I think it's a great religion for lawyers and judges but a poor one for common patriots. As Helen Thomas said very recently, "Dissent is patriotic." The Constitution's swell, but far as I'm concerned, God's not finished with it yet.
Last month, the ACLU launched a campaign against the Patriot Act. I wonder how many Americans realize how much freedoms we give up under these safe sounding bills. It's more than we have to give up.
This really bothers me. Back in the day keeping track of all that information would have been impossible. Now with the speed of modern computers it's not only possible but it looks like it could easily happen. What ever happened to "Home of the Free"? PS- I know a friend of a friend who has some land out side of Austin and he's trying to get himself and his family "off of the grid". Solar power, home schooling, private well, etc. This always seemed a little extream to me but maybe he is ahead of the curve.
This stuff scares the crap out of me and I hope it's struck from the bill before made law...I'm confident that will happen.
I recommend Textron as a stock play on this new legislation. Bell Helicopter is owned by Textron and a rumor in the investment community has it that they are about to receive an order from the government for 1,000 new black helicopters.
Ref...do you remember a couple of months back, when you were presenting your " We have to give up some liberties to ensure our safety" argument, actually termed more like " Well, you can have all the personel freedom you want standing in a pile of ashes.." etc...and among other things, I pointed out that it's a slippery slope...this is what I meant. In an age when we should be questioning our government's actions more than ever, we are instead giving up more and more of what we are based on, in a government-stirred bout of post-traumatic fear. The measure of a people's freedom isn't taken when everything is peachy, but in how they react when things aren't going so well...Do they stick to their guns and uphold their avowed principles, or do they take the "practical" route, like every other failed 'free' people on their way to Machiavellian power politics?
I did think some of this was available to the NSA already. I'm admittedly a paranoid FREAK, but this is one reason I almost always use cash instead of my credit card. It's also why I've surgically altered my fingerpads and retinas. Seriously, I think if you try to "leave the grid," you will become a major suspect for these goons -- I mean, our government. Refman, I might be up for attending the first conference of your party. With a little tweaking to certain parts of the platform, I could lend my support, I think. Certainly before I could join the Greenies.
You know, I really, really hate some of the things that are being doen in the name of patriotism... but this just isn't one of them. To be honest, I don't really care how much the government knows about me. However, I do have two very strict stipulations about this: 1. The database should only be used in the interest of national security. No busting people on tax fraud as a result of this database. 2. No release to anybody else; not even info-sharing within the government. I understand the need to have information to prevent terrorism... but it shoudl stop, and end, after satisfying the justifiable purpose. I know this one sounds odd coming from me... I've just never cared that much about privacy rights. Griswold and Roe may be good social policy decisions, but they were never all that persuasive Constitutionally.
haven, that's an interesting take, and I see where you're coming from, but one could argue that we're on a slippery slope. For instance, there's a project at XEROX PARC. They were (maybe still are) experimenting with creating an "audio aura" for all employees there. In the testbed (one wing of one research building), everyone had on these headsets, and as they walked around, they were given personalized little audio cues. The cues could inform them about meetings, about the coffee being ready, or even as you walked past someone's door, you could get an audio update of how recently that person had been there! They were all happy-happy about this helping the workplace, but at the same time everybody was being tracked, down to which toilet you sat on to take a dump. That's extreme, of course, but where do you draw the line when it comes to the feds (nevermind employers -- another topic, for now)? And if you hand over a bunch of power (particularly to the likes of Poindexter or, eeks, Ashcroft), I believe you make it that much easier for the next step to take place. Okay, back to hiding under my desk. I have a new aluminum foil lining for my baseball cap so that the government mind-control rays won't work! (I'm kidding... no really, I am)
B-Bob: I might buy it, except that I want to throw all slippery slope analogies in the trash can. It's one big fallacy. If the world were a perfect place, everything would have fantastic, obvious, big, neon brightlines. Unfortunately, that's just not the way it works. In fact, "absolutes" don't even really exist, metaphysically speaking. Everything is gradiated. And we have to pick the grade for each social "selection" at the point at which best benefits society (or is the most just, take your pick). Even things that we clasically think of as "absolute" freedoms, rights, or principles are in reality, gradiated. We simply are very close to one end of the spectrum on these issues. Freedom of speech? Can't yell fire in a theatre. Can't run up to a black person in their own home and call them a goddamned filthy ******. In the first case, we've decided that social order is more important than protecting nuisance speech. As to the second, we've placed property rights and personal integrity rights over speech rights. Property rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of property, remember!)? Nah, we have taxes. And, less obviously, we have major stipulations. You can't use your own property adversely to the interests of another. Hell, the legislature controls many uses of property. And let's not even start with the legal limitations on conveyance, etc. Democracy? Nope, we have representatives. And even more, we have locally elected representatives rather than a system of national proportionalism. And then we have the judiciary to check them, just in case they pass certain laws. The list could go on infinitely... but I'm sure my point is obvious (and too long) by now. The slippery slope fallacy.... is a pleasant illusion.
haven, dismissing a slippery slope argument out of hand is, um, sort of absolutist. aside from that, you make excellent points, and of course I completely agree with the relativism and the non-ideal, realistic social order you paint. but even in a relativist scenario, the question of degree is crucial and you need to ask, say, three questions. 1. how big of a privacy/personal freedoms change is this? 2. how easily can it lead to other such changes? 3. given the proposed change, how visible will future changes be? I just don't think our Congress is thinking along these lines at all. I don't know the answer to those questions, but with Poindexter involved, it is valid to express concern about #3, at least.
B-bob: My biggest concern with such legislation is actually the people currently in power. No, not Republicans. Republicans are as big on some aspects of privacy rights as liberals (they don't like the government, all that much, me thinks ). However, Ashcroft scares the living **** out of me. Custodian of liberty? Ha! The guy you mention sounds pretty scary as well. So I guess I'll agree that I'm wary of such legislation... just not opposed to it on its face.
