News-Letter

Media Credit: Matt Hansen [Click to enlarge]

This being the last article I will write for this newspaper, I'd like to share my thoughts on a topic a bit more philosophical than one typically finds in the pages of the News-Letter. My space is too limited to fully explain my position, but I hope you will bear with me, and perhaps even come to consider a different perspective on the very core of what it means to live in modern times.

One would think that in the era of the 24-hour news cycle there would be time enough to air all the most important stories. But for the past few weeks, while we've been inundated with Imus and the endless, unnecessary pop-psychoanalysis of the Virginia Tech killer, what no one has paid much attention to is that the White House is taking steps to further erode our civil liberties in the interest of the total surveillance state.

On April 13, the administration proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would induce telecommunications companies to cooperate with federal investigations while providing immunity from lawsuits - the common person's recourse against corporate abuse. The president also wants to extend surveillance under FISA - surveillance that does not need to be justified to a judge until after it has been completed - to 360 days.

Perhaps most disturbingly, Bush wants investigators to be able to keep data collected unintentionally. That is akin to a police officer entering a home without a warrant or probable cause, discovering illegal activity, and using that discovery to bring charges. In a typical situation, that charge would be dead on arrival. FISA is supposedly a tool for protecting against foreign menaces, but in a world in which information knows no national boundaries, none of us can feel protected.

But the surveilled life does not end there. From DNA databases to searchable national police camera footage archives (as reported by NPR on April 20) to traffic cameras, and the de facto national ID system known as REAL ID, the hand of the state is reaching ever deeper into our private lives. Citizen, show me your papers!

Continued...

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