Don't snoop on us

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 09:59:54 -0700
From: bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us
Subject: Don't snoop on us
X-Originating-IP: 68.227.224.243
To: dave () farber net

Dave

Earl De Berge is a local Pollster.  The article below appeared in his 
section of
the Arizona Republic's BLOG yesterday (Saturday).

It certainly dovetails with the quotes in my sig. line.

I believe it will be interesting to IPer's.

Regards,

Bob
--
Bob Rosenberg,

"An informed public is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment."
U. S. Supreme Court, Grosjean vs. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 250 (1936)

I yearn for the day when eternal vigilance doesn't have to be quite so bloody
vigilant!

"Eternal Vigilance" is supposed to mean citizens watching their Governments,
not the other way around....

**********************************************

Don't snoop on us
        
Feb. 14, 2004 06:00 PM

FORGET THE PATRIOT ACT, WE NEED TO ACT LIKE PATRIOTS OF OLD

Earl de Berge
Public opinion
and market research

Within America a threat grows from those who believe that if our country is to
be safe from its enemies, civil liberties must be curtailed by the heavy 
hand of
government.

The tentacles of this threat spread with deliberate slowness around the 
roots of
the Bill of Rights. As an excuse to give the central government more control
over our lives, manipulators of public opinion would have us fear the world.

In the name of national security and of protecting us from the mad men of our
times they spur the Congress to pass laws that strip away citizen's rights to
privacy and civil liberty.

The phrase "Don't tread on me!" expresses the attitude of a mentally healthy
public that understands that all governments, given the chance, will try to
reduce the ability of the people to remove them from power. They do this by
brute force, as in the Iraq of Saddam Hussein or, a nibble at a time, as now in
the U.S., until they have sufficient powers to tread on us all.

Today, with cynical Madison Avenue labeling, the Patriot Act and the
consolidation of federal police powers in the Department of Homeland Security,
aim to choke off citizens' rights to live free of fear that a trooper will
someday kick in the door to arrest them because of their beliefs or because 
this
or a future administration considers them to be suspicious.

Linking data bases, the government's power to snoop spreads as never 
before. Its
capacity to know when and where we travel, what foods we buy, what books we
check out, what thoughts we express on the Internet, whether we own guns 
and how
we handle our finances goes far beyond the needs of national security.

Churches are now accepting federal funds for so-called faith-based initiatives.
Will they soon find themselves required to divulge private information about
their members? Under the 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act the FBI has new
powers to examine, without subpoena to examine business and personal financial
records held by banks, credit card companies, stock brokers and travel 
carriers.

At the state level, efforts to restrict liberty in the name of "just causes"
find their way into laws that strengthen agencies' ability to circumvent the
principles of due process and probable cause. Random police checks, ostensibly
to keep drunks off the road, seem harmless enough until we remember they have
the potential to be used more widely by administrations turned paranoid.

No government has been invented that does not thirst to increase its power over
the people, or which does not increase its efforts to do so in times of stress.
Americans should find no comfort when the government imprisons a single citizen
without charges or trial, as it has done in these last two years.

Where is the wisdom in believing we can defend democracy by giving up the very
rights that make democracy what it is? Is it not more noble to struggle 
with the
challenges of democracy than to cower under the wing of a government that 
claims
to knows what is best?

"But terrorists will attack us again," say apologists for the assault on the
Bill of Rights. Yes they will, whether the terrorists are foreigners or our own
citizens, and they will do so whether we give up our civil rights and civil
liberties or not. So why give them up at all?

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