Would Orwell Feel at Home?

Would Orwell Feel at Home?

ACLU report claims post-9/11 surveillance technology is alarmingly eroding privacy.

Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service


The Orwellian vision of a "surveillance society," where the government peeks over everyone's shoulder and chances to hide are scant, is coming dangerously close to reality, according to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union this week.

The report, dubbed "Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society," examines the recent "explosion" of surveillance technologies and the comparable lack of legal measures to control them. It is available for download from the ACLU's site.


Raising Awareness

"Many people still do not grasp that Big Brother surveillance is no longer the stuff of books and movies," said Barry Steinhardt, ACLU technology and liberty program director, in a statement accompanying release of the study.

Steinhardt, who coauthored the report, added that legislation adopted since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have only weakened citizens' constitutional protections.

For example, he points to the government's Total Information Awareness program, which seeks to create databases of personal information the government could search in its fight against terrorism. The program has caught flak from some members of Congress, as well as civil liberties groups. But Steinhardt points out that even if the program is scaled down, it represents a disturbing trend toward privacy erosion.

From government watch lists to secret wiretaps, U.S. residents are increasingly becoming the subjects of government surveillance, the report warns. And perhaps the most disturbing part, according to the ACLU, is that these powers are going unchecked by legal "chains."

Action Urged

The good news is that the drift toward a surveillance society can be stopped if people give more weight to protecting their privacy, the report says.

The group suggests enacting comprehensive privacy laws, passing new laws for new technologies, and changing the terms of the debate so citizens see the bigger impact that new laws and technologies have on their freedoms.

"If we do not take steps to control and regulate surveillance to bring it into conformity with our values, we will find ourselves being tracked, analyzed, profiled, and flagged in our daily lives to a degree that we can scarcely imagine today," the report states.

The ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act for details on how the government has applied its broader new surveillance powers granted since the terrorist attacks. At least a partial response to the inquiry is expected this week.
http://aolsvc.pcworld.aol.com/computercenter/aol/article/0,aid,108845,00.asp

 

The Founding Fathers EXPECTED the citizens of the country to police the govt. But because most citizens are lazy and apathetic, the govt. pretty much can do what they want. Note, the govt. or power that be are smart enough to know that these types of changes have to put into place subtly and gradually to avoid an "uprising" ie. when SS# were first issued, many people grumbled and moaned about "security issues" and "constitutional rights of privacy," foreseeing a day when the SS# would be used to keep track of people. But at the time, the govt. assured EVERYONE that would never happen, and SS# would only be used for "issuing checks" upon retirement and for the "good of the economy and nation as a whole" ( for those who don't know, this was shortly after the Great Depression)
Fast forward to today, one can't even get a cell phone without giving the company their SS#. If they had adopted all of these policies when it was first issued, the general populace would have rioted.

Again, right now, we have a similar situation re: surviellance, tracking of citizens and 'national security'. So praying upon people's FEAR, and expecting most citizens to be lazy and apathetic, the govt. can institute policies such as these gradually over time, without a great amount of resistance.
Let's take for example, how many people have even read this thread or let alone posted to it.

 

Re: Re: Would Orwell Feel at Home?

The Founding Fathers EXPECTED the citizens of the country to police the govt. But because most citizens are lazy and apathetic, the govt. pretty much can do what they want.
Again, if the citizens aren't willing to use their constitutional rights to oversee the govt. the founding fathers fully expected the citizens to do what they did. . .
That's why we have the Bill of Rights. . . to keep tabs on the govt. and ourselves.
Obviously, the current govt. is MORE concerned with its own citizens, than the terrorists. I wonder why. . .