Total information gives government total power to snoop
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Do you know about the Information Awareness Office in the Pentagon? You should, because it is a key element in the systematic destruction of our freedom.
Once the IAO's Total Information Awareness System is in place, all of your bank, medical, telephone, and Internet records will be entered in a government data base. Travel reservations, credit-card purchases? In they go. Biometric data for facial, iris, gait, and fingerprint recognition will also be included. No search warrants will be needed. The potential for abuse by this, or any future, administration is enormous.
Who did George W. Bush choose to head the TIA program? Former Admiral John Poindexter of Iran-Contra infamy. On April 7, 1990, he was convicted on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of Congress, and lying to Congress.
Opposition to the draconian TIA program has surfaced across the political spectrum. Interviewed by Larry King on Nov. 19, Al Gore strongly criticized the administration's plan as leading to a "Big Brother-type approach. I think there ought to be a lot of resistance to this."
When Chuck Pena, senior defense policy analyst for the conservative Cato Institute, was interviewed by the right-wing Fox News Channel (Nov. 21), he also blasted TIA: "What this is talking about is making us a nation of suspects and, I am sorry, the United States citizens should not have to live in fear of their own government and that is exactly what this is going to turn out to be."
On Nov. 14, conservative columnist William Safire wrote a blistering op-ed piece in the New York Times where he noted sarcastically that "When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy." On its Web site, the John Birch Society warns its members, "We must do everything in our power to prevent our fellow citizens' fear of future terrorism from being exploited to build a police state."
See for yourself. The official web site of the Information Awareness Office ( www.darpa.mil/iao/) describes the various programs. Check out the colorful chart picturing the Total Information Awareness System.
Read about the HumanID Program and think about the federally-mandated digital driver's license that all of us will soon carry. And don't forget the Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery Program.
Our government supposedly has a system of checks and balances. Why hasn't Congress acted to protect us from this massive assault on our freedom? According to the conservative Washington Times ("A Supersnoop's Dream," Nov. 15), Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) said, "In defense of members of Congress, many don't read the whole legislation and very few people read the fine print. You would think the Pentagon planning a system to peek at personal data would get a little more attention. It's outrageous, it really is outrageous."
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was even more critical of his colleagues. Speaking from the Senate floor on Nov. 19, he accused them of cowardice. Saying "apparently some senators here vote as though they think the President is king, although they know better than that," Byrd went on to observe that "there are members of the Senate and House who are terrified, apparently" of voting against the President, even if it "may be against their belief."
Claiming that "the administration has sold a bill of goods to the American people," Byrd fulminated that Congress "has rolled over" and "done precious little to make sure that appropriate safeguards ... protect the privacy rights and civil liberties of the American public."
Don't count on the judicial branch to protect us. When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court found that the FBI had lied on applications for secret surveillance, its seven judges were overruled by a top-secret Court of Review whose three members were chosen by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. All three are Reagan appointees. Meeting in secret, only the government was allowed to appear before the Court of Review. As a New York Times editorial observed on Nov. 19, "The combination of one-sided arguments and one-sided judges hardly instills confidence in the court's decisions."
The official motto of the Information Awareness Office says it all: "Scientia Est Potentia" ("Knowledge Is Power"). Total Information Awareness means that the government will have total power over you. It will not only know where you are and what you've done, it will even be able to predict what you're about to do next.
Add to all this the Bush administration's total disdain for our entire system of justice. American citizens are now being imprisoned without a trial, without being charged with a crime, indefinitely. Because George W. Bush says so. If someone is brought to trail and the government's case falls apart, just transfer him to a kangaroo tribunal, where constitutional niceties like giving him a chance to prove his innocence need not apply. And let's not forget the contingency plans being developed for mass detention centers.
It's a very ugly picture.
Uttered in 1790, the words of an Irishman named John Philpot Curran cry out to us today: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."
Did our founding fathers courageously throw off the odious tyranny of one King George only to have their sacrifices wasted as we meekly accept the tyranny of another?
John Merrill of Augusta has commented on state, national, and world issues for more than 30 years. He may be reached at 623-2055.