June 2nd, 2006
TYS: Surveillanceworld
TYS = "Told You So." And this is not something I was looking forward to being right about, but the Bush Administration seems intent on driving toward a complete Orwellian world.
According to CNET (sister publication of ZD Net), Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller met with Google, Microsoft, America Online, Comcast and Verizon to demand that they provide the Department of Justice up to two years of their customers Web surfing records. This follows Gonzales’ and Rep. James Sensenbrenner’s use of kiddie porn to justify similar request of search engines, monitoring of journalists’ phones for government leaks, the National Security Agency’s requests for telephone records, and General Michael Hayden’s insistence to the Senate Intelligence Committee that any surveillance possible is reasonable surveillance.
Once again, this is all about traffic analysis and, as ZD Net blogger Donna Bogatin points out with a map you should see, could easily be extended to the physical travel observed by technology, as well. It is clear, nevertheless, that if we aren’t already buried in Surveillanceworld, we’ve fallen so far down the slippery slope that a new violation of civil liberties is a daily occurrence.
Last night I was at an event talking with a friend in government who has been spending his vacation playing online poker. He’s going to have to stop because the state of Washington is preparing to outlaw online poker, making it a felony on par with possessing kiddie porn. At what point does the grey area of moral and fear-based policing of the American citizen become intolerable? The answer was clear at the founding of the nation: Government has no business in our homes, papers (and, by extension, since network connect our homes and information) communications.
Mitch Ratcliffe is a veteran journalist, media executive and entrepreneur. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 06/02/06
