First, go read William Safire’s article on the Homeland Security act. If you don’t already have a login with the New York Times, get one – it takes like two seconds and is worth it.
If you’re in a hurry, here’re the basics:
If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend – all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as “a virtual, centralized grand database.”
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you – passport application, driver’s license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance – and you have the supersnoop’s dream: a “Total Information Awareness” about every U.S. citizen.
I am constantly flabbergasted by the things that some members of our government thinks they can put over on us. Privacy is a basic human right. I don’t care that I have nothing to hide – it’s nobody’s business what websites I go to, what grades I got, etc. Sure, there’s a slim chance that this might help get rid of terrorism. But you know what? Executing every person on American soil would also help get rid of terrorism. The ends do not justify the means.
I am enough of an optimist that I don’t think this monstrosity will pass, but I’m enough of a cynic that I’m writing my congressfolk about it.
I’d urge my readers to do the same. You can look up both your Representative and your Senators pretty easily with those links there.
