CITIZENS   FOR  LIMITED  TAXATION  &  GOVERNMENT
and the
Citizens Economic Research Foundation

 

CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, December 3, 2002

Commentary on Big Brother's arrival


Well, I guess the terrorists are winning....

I was already frightened by reading Orwell's 1984 in college. But many of us thought once that date came and went in a free America, we'd dodged the totalitarian bullet. So fine, no one has put your face in a cage full of rats yet; good for you.

The Salem News
Nov. 25, 2002
At any price? 
War against terrorism not worth winning
if it comes at cost of individual rights

by Barbara Anderson


It's the holiday season, and your federal government is going shopping.

But will Total Information Awareness fit down John Poindexter's chimney?

The retired Navy rear admiral - a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal - is the prime target of civil libertarians spooked by the idea of a central database on consumer activity.

Famous Poindexter quote: "I simply did not want any outside interference."

The Boston Herald
Dec. 2, 2002
Mission Unconscionable
by Cosmo Macero Jr.


Perhaps one of the greatest misunderstandings of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Department is that an incidental effect of the battle against terrorism might be some loss of civil liberties. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is an explicit goal of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Department to infringe upon previously protected constitutional rights in the interests of detecting and stamping out terrorist cells....

It's at times like this that we should remember that not everyone in Stalin's prison system was guilty of subversion or some crime. Stalin's prisons were filled with undesirables, political dissidents and people who had no idea why they were a threat to the state.

The MetroWest Daily News
Dec. 2, 2002
George W.'s gulag
By Rob Meltzer


The Salem News
Monday, November 25, 2002

At any price? 
War against terrorism not worth winning
if it comes at cost of individual rights

by Barbara Anderson

Well, I guess the terrorists are winning.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Pentagon is "building a system called 'Total Information Awareness' that would effectively provide government officials with immediate access to our personal information: all of our communications (phone calls, e-mails and web searches), financial records, purchases, prescriptions, school records, medical records and travel history. Under this program, our entire lives would be catalogued and available to government officials."

Many Americans have decided that we have nothing to fear as much as fear of terrorism, and they did not object to the first float of the Homeland Security Act which contained this loss of privacy. The idea of a government-run central database that can track, well, everyone, is reassuring to them.

If the government ever gets mad at you, you can't hide, get money, eat, have a job, or run a guerrilla revolution without getting caught and crushed; but maybe you'll never offend the government. I'm not in a position to hug that illusion, having offended more than my share of politicians. But some of you may know when to keep your mouths shut.

Just to make sure you can't defend yourself if power-hungry statists take over and enjoy having you under their control, get out there and support gun control too.

See, the terrorists don't have to kill Americans or blow up the White House or the Super Bowl. They don't hate individuals, buildings, or stadiums; they hate the idea of America, the freedoms that we all enjoy here. Once we give them up voluntarily, the terrorists can celebrate; we will be just like the people in their countries, and all those places in the world whose citizens properly fear their leaders.

Can't happen here? Can anyone give me one reason why not? Are we a different species from the human beings who have struggled to defend themselves and their families against the armed power of government for all of recorded history?

Yes, illegal immigration is a problem. Some immigrants have crept into the country to do harm. Many of them, however, are here trying to escape the abuses of their own governments. There are very few people on the planet who wouldn't be better off here than they are wherever they are instead. So why don't we just let all of them come here? Move over, Americans; you're hogging the land of the free.

We can protect ourselves from traveling terrorists by having a National ID card with a centralized database, so we can keep track of them. Maybe then they'll stay where they are, since America won't be all that much different than where they came from.

Eventually the database can be expanded so that someone always knows where everyone in the world is and what they are all doing.

In the mid-'90s, my partner Chip Ford, then director of an organization called Freedom First, wrote an article titled "High Tech and the Age of Intrusion," in which he tracked the erosion of our freedom. Beginning with the social security card, which we were promised would never be used for general identification, to today's database marketing, he chronicles the broken promises and warns that modern crime-prevention techniques like DNA fingerprinting can also be used against ordinary citizens.

Have I been overly influenced by his concern?

No, I was already frightened by reading Orwell's 1984 in college. But many of us thought once that date came and went in a free America, we'd dodged the totalitarian bullet. So fine, no one has put your face in a cage full of rats yet; good for you.

A few years later, I danced to the music of Rare Earth: "Hey, Big Brother, as soon as you arrive ... take a closer look at the people you meet, and notice the fear in their eye, yeah."

As it turns out, we have a lot more to fear than fear itself. Very few rallied to the defense of privacy and freedom: on Massachusetts talk radio, David Brudnoy doesn't think that the loss of liberties will enhance our own security, but Rush Limbaugh, Jay Severin and Avi Nelson all stated their willingness to give up some of both for "security," as if there is such a thing. Only Jim Braude on WTKK fulfilled the role I'm sure Jerry Williams would have played a decade ago.

The Homeland Security Act passed both branches of Congress with little opposition. As Rare Earth asked us all, back in the '70s, "Now that you've got the picture, what you going to do?"

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The Boston Herald
Monday, December 2, 2002

Mission Unconscionable
by Cosmo Macero Jr.

It's the holiday season, and your federal government is going shopping.

But will Total Information Awareness fit down John Poindexter's chimney?

The retired Navy rear admiral - a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal - is the prime target of civil libertarians spooked by the idea of a central database on consumer activity.

Famous Poindexter quote: "I simply did not want any outside interference."

That was his answer in 1987 when asked why, as national security adviser, he never told Congress about a secret alliance between the United States and Nicaraguan rebels.

Americans had trouble relating to the retired admiral, who ultimately appealed and beat a conviction for lying to Congress.

Fast forward 15 years, and now Poindexter is leading the anti-terrorism info mission for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

All he wants for Christmas: "Revolutionary technology for ultra-large all-source information repositories," according to the Pentagon's solicitation for proposals.

But if Poindexter as figurehead for a consumer-oriented spying program is enough to scare privacy advocates, the particulars of what DARPA is actually trying to build ought to send them into hiding.

The Pentagon outlines the goal of Total Information Awareness with six steps: detect; classify; ID; track; understand; pre-empt.

All you have to do is fill in the blanks: Detect unusual consumer activity; ID and classify the consumer; track the consumer's movements ... and so on.

The premise alone suggests J. Edgar Hoover has been reanimated for the war on terrorism.

Because the starting point for this Mission Unconscionable is a chilling government catalog of everyday American life.

And the red flags won't be limited to clumsy consumer purchases of firearms, fertilizer and tickets to Tel Aviv.

Consider: The data input list for Total Information Awareness suggests the Pentagon will track Americans' "financial, education, travel, medical, veterinary, transportation, housing" and other transactions.

My favorite: "Place and event entry."

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the government won't be following you.

"The database envisioned is of an unprecedented scale, will most likely be distributed (and) must be capable of being continuously updated," the Pentagon says.

Perhaps the data "will be distributed" in the same way the FBI circulated a post-Sept. 11, 2001, list of hundreds of people, not suspects, whom the agency thought could provide useful information.

"A year later, the list has taken on a life of its own, with multiplying - and error-filled - versions being passed around like bootleg music," The Wall Street Journal recently reported. "Some companies fed a version of the list into their databases and now use it to screen job applicants and customers."

Sadly, the Pentagon's language on the crucial task of protecting Americans from routine government intrusion reads like an afterthought.

"Business rules are required to enforce security policy and views appropriate for the viewer's role."

Huh?

Or this: "To protect the privacy of individuals not affiliated with terrorism, DARPA seeks technologies ... for purging data structures appropriately."

Aren't the vast majority of Americans not affiliated with terrorism?

The full extent of the TIA's shortcomings comes into focus when you consider that: Nonclassified subcontractors and non-U.S. citizens are allowed to work on the project as long as their duties are segregated from classified work; and foreign corporations, under certain conditions, may also be involved in developing this database of "unprecedented scale."

Consumer privacy - once a sacred principle to Attorney General John Ashcroft when he served in the U.S. Senate - is eroding so quickly in Washington that most Americans don't recognize the threat.

But the corporate partners that Poindexter is negotiating with recognized it almost immediately - at least with regards to their own peace of mind.

Frequently asked question No. 41 from the Pentagon's solicitation: "Our company is not comfortable submitting personal Social Security numbers in this type of document. Must SSNs be provided?"

Question No. 76: "Can the government prevent personal data (e.g. SSNs) from being released through FOIA, or if awarded might the proposal become public?"

The Pentagon's response: "Personal data is exempt from FOIA ... commercial and financial information contained in a proposal submitted to DARPA are also exempt from FOIA. More information on FOIA exemptions is available at ..."

So the most guarded information about consumer-buying patterns, financial transactions, medical information and even the very places that Americans visit will soon be an open book to John Poindexter.

Yet his corporate partners get a federal safety shield and personal guidance on how to avoid public scrutiny.

Your federal government is going shopping. And your fundamental right to be left alone is at the top of the Pentagon's list.

Someone needs to tell John Poindexter that after all these years, Americans can finally relate.

Because, quite simply, we don't want this kind of outside interference.

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The MetroWest Daily News
Monday, December 2, 2002

George W.'s gulag
By Rob Meltzer

Perhaps one of the greatest misunderstandings of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Department is that an incidental effect of the battle against terrorism might be some loss of civil liberties. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is an explicit goal of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Department to infringe upon previously protected constitutional rights in the interests of detecting and stamping out terrorist cells. Here's a scenario that illustrates the point:

Let's assume that it is April of 2001, you are a resident of Arizona and the Homeland Security Department -- signed into law last week -- is in place.

The FBI has just learned that three Arab men are taking flying lessons in Arizona and these men don't seem to have any interest in learning how to land a plane. The FBI duly commences an investigation and surveillance of these individuals.

Meanwhile, you have a neighbor who is a Lebanese Christian. Shortly after the attack on the Cole, your neighbor, who has no love for Muslims, writes a letter to the editor of your local newspaper suggesting that maybe, perhaps, the United States government should try to understand the anger at work in the Arab world. A copy of the letter ends up in the Homeland Security Department, which immediately begins a secret investigation of your neighbor. Based upon secret warrants, the investigators find that your neighbor routinely sends checks to Beirut, and that some of the funds can be traced back to a check written by you to your neighbor.

Using secret warrants based upon this information, the Homeland Security Department checks your financial records and your credit card information, and discovers that you frequent the same restaurant frequented by the flight students. You receive a knock on your door at 1 a.m., and you are whisked away in your pajamas without any explanation to your family. (In the world of national security, where hours matter, investigators don't have to wait until morning).

During your interrogation, at which you have no right to legal counsel, you inform your interrogators that you don't know the flight students, that you know that your neighbor sends money to his mother in Beirut and that you bought a lawn mower at your neighbor's yard sale a few months before and paid by check.

Now the Department is in a quandary. You are now aware that the government is investigating your neighbor and the flight students who you might see in the restaurant. If you are released, you could jeopardize the entire investigation into a possible terrorist cell. Consequently, you could be held, indefinitely and incommunicado, until the government decides that your information is no longer a threat to an ongoing investigation. And your family has no ability to find out where you are.

I'll reiterate the point. This scenario isn't a worst case scenario. It's a best case scenario. It's how the investigation is supposed to work. A few years ago, this fact pattern would have been a hypothetical law school exam in constitutional abuse. Not anymore.

It's at times like this that we should remember that not everyone in Stalin's prison system was guilty of subversion or some crime. Stalin's prisons were filled with undesirables, political dissidents and people who had no idea why they were a threat to the state. It's also at times like this that we like to remember that the United States of America has a Supreme Court, entrusted with protecting citizens against the kinds of abuses that are described here, the midnight knock on the door, guilt by association, unlawful detention, the right to counsel, the right to a jury trial, the right to know the charges against you, the right to cross examine witnesses, the right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and so forth. It now appears that none of this matters when a matter of national security is at stake.

Of course, we could still hope that the United States Supreme Court would demonstrate a fierce independence, and would recognize that it cannot, in good conscience, allow wholesale violations of civil liberties to proceed. On the other hand, the current Republican majority in the United States Senate is licking its chops over such delicious ideas as appointing John Ashcroft or Ken Starr to be chief justice.

Just a little something that you might want to think about, as you sit in your chicken wire pen under the blistering sun, perhaps in Cuba, or perhaps somewhere else, in George W.'s gulag.

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