[Infowarrior] - Our benevolent surveillance state

[Richard Forno]

Wednesday April 18, 2007 11:31 EST
Our benevolent surveillance state
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/0
4/18/surveillance/

The expansion of the Surveillance State is endless. Buried within an ABC
report on the Virginia Tech shootings is this paragraph (h/t reader DT):

    Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of
antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can
find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not
completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a
physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the
federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete
search.

Is there any good reason whatsoever why the federal government should be
maintaining "files" which contain information about the pharmaceutical
products which all Americans are consuming? The noxious idea has taken root
in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly
bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government
is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on
what we do.

If that sounds hyperbolic, just review the disclosures over the course of
recent years concerning what data bases the Federal Government has created
and maintained and the vast amounts of data they contain -- everything from
every domestic telephone call we make and receive to the content of our
international calls to "risk assessment" records based on our travel
activities to all sorts of information obtained by the FBI's use of NSLs.
And none of that includes, obviously, the as-yet-undisclosed surveillance
programs undertaken by the most secretive administration in history.

It is true that much (though not all) of this data is already scattered in
the hands of various private corporations and insurance companies. But, for
multiple and self-evident reasons, it presents a fundamentally different
type and level of threat when it is all consolidated and centralized in the
hands of the federal government. Amazingly, it is the political movement
that spent all of the 1990s stridently warning of the dangers of federal
government power -- The Black Helicopters And Janet Reno Are Coming -- which
has brought us this Surveillance State and continues to cheer on its
infinite expansion.

The federal government data base which contains all of our controlled
substance prescriptions, for instance, was mandated by a law -- The National
All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act -- passed in 2005 by the
Republican-controlled Congress (though with full bipartisan support) and
signed into law by the "conservative" Leader. That law appropriates funds to
each state to create and maintain these data bases which are, apparently,
accessible to federal agencies, federal law enforcement officials, and
almost certainly thousands of other state and federal employees (as well as,
most likely, employees of private companies).

Along these lines, the Department of Homeland Security last month
promulgated proposed regulations for enforcement of the so-called Real ID
Act of 2005 (.pdf). Those regulations require that every state issue
technologically compatible Driver's Licenses which enable, in essence,
uniform and nationwide tracking of all sorts of private information about
every individual. Just as the Prescription Drug Tracking Law is "justified"
by the Drug War, these national ID cards are justified by the War on
Terrorism. As the Homeland Security Department explains:

    The 9/11 Commission endorsed the REAL ID requirements, noting that: "For
terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons . . . All but one
of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of identification document, some by
fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them
in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary
activities."

EPIC notes that "the deadline for public comment [on the DHS regulations] is
May 8, 2007" -- and from what I understand, more public comments are needed
from people who have strong views about these regulations. EPIC explains why
these regulations are so disturbing:

    The requirement for non-REAL ID-compliant DL/ID to have explicit
"invalid for federal purposes" designations, turns this "voluntary" card
into a mandatory national ID card. Anyone with a non-REAL ID-compliant card
would be instantly suspicious. Compliant cards would be necessary for
federal purposes such as entering courthouses, air travel or receiving
federal benefits, such as Medicaid or Social Security. It would be easy for
insurance companies, credit card companies, even video stores, to demand a
REAL ID-compliant DL/ID in order to receive services.

That the "conservative" movement is ushering in measures such as a federal
law mandating that every state create National ID cards is ironic on
multiple levels. But as Wired's Ryan Singel notes, numerous states -- the
latest being Montana (after Idaho, Arkansas and Maine) -- have enacted laws
refusing to comply with these requirements on the ground that they infringe
on the privacy of the citizens of that state and/or on the ground that the
law violates federalism principles by taking over areas (i.e., regulating
driver's licenses) traditionally preserved for the states. For those
reasons, many other states, particularly in the Mountain West and even the
Deep South, are on their way to enacting similar laws refusing to comply.

It is simply no longer news when the "conservative" movement violates every
"small-government" and states' rights principle it pretended to embrace
("conservatives" Andy McCarthy, David Frum, and John Yoo tonight are
appearing at an event to argue for this Orwellian proposition: "Better More
Surveillance than Another 9/11"). Apparently, we need to empower the federal
government to maintain comprehensive dossiers on all Americans, otherwise
our freedoms might be at risk from The Terrorists.

It is hardly worth pointing out that the idea of the Federal Government
engaging in massive surveillance of innocent American citizens is about as
far away from the core beliefs of the American Founders as one can get.
Anyone who does not realize that is likely beyond the realm of persuasion.

But the only people who would think that it is fine to have the Federal
Government compiling dossiers like this are those who place blind faith in
our Leaders not to abuse their power. But that is the ethos that is the
exact opposite of the one on which the country was founded, but which has
come to dominate so much of our political culture.

-- Glenn Greenwald