Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:20:07 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Brock Meeks: First, brand all the children
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Brock Meeks: First, brand all the children

http://www.msnbc.com/news/646793.asp


First, brand all the children

Cyber-liberties swept away by tidal wave of security concerns

OPINION
By Brock N. Meeks
MSNBC

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - Anthrax, Afghanistan, al-Qaida, Ashcroft and
anti-terrorism legislation. We aren't even through the first letter of the
geopolitical alphabet before jumping all the way to "S" as in "screwed" as
in what's happening to civil liberties in the online world.

 WITH AMERICA LOOKING more like a nation running scared than a nation
standing strong, our leaders here in Washington are rolling back privacy
protections or launching proposals that will have us all hard-wired into
some all-seeing government database faster than they can evacuate their
offices during an anthrax scare.

 Am I the only one to notice how sick and twisted it is for Oracle's
Larry Ellison and Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy to be vocally advocating
the establishment of a national ID card system? Just a few years ago, these
two baby billionaires couldn't be dragged kicking or screaming to
Washington, and now they're pimping for a national database system that
could track you and me from cradle to grave?

 The word "evil" is being tossed around a lot these days, and it
rightly applies to the concept of a national ID card. Even conservative
icon Ronald Reagan brushed off that idea. During Reagan's presidency,
national ID cards were proposed as a way of dealing with illegal
immigration. But Reagan feared they could be abused for, say, tracking all
gun owners or gun purchases. Even after he was shot, Reagan rebuffed the
lunacy of a national ID card. Legend has it that during a Cabinet meeting,
when the ID card topic was raised in relation to immigration, Reagan
deadpanned: "Maybe we should just brand all babies."

 Or maybe we should just allow the FBI to tap any and every
conversation - spoken or written - that it merely suspects might be related
to "suspicious" activity? Because in fact, that is exactly what the new
anti-terrorism bill allows.

'SNEAK AND PEEK'

   The anti-terrorism bill now passed by both houses of
Congress contains a "delayed notice" provision (section 213) that allows
federal agents to conduct covert searches of your home.

 "This means that law enforcement agencies can enter a person's home
or office, search through the person's possessions, in some cases seize
physical objects or electronic information, without the person knowing that
law enforcement agents were there," the American Civil Liberties Union
wrote to congressional leaders in a letter outlining their concerns about
the bill.

 These so-called "sneak and peek" provisions treat the Fourth
Amendment protections as if they were written in pencil, easily erased and
malleable, tied to the crisis-of-the-day level of paranoia. There is a
damned good reason the Fourth Amendment exists. The last time I read the
Fourth Amendment I didn't notice a clause that said, "Š unless, of course,
the country is cowering from a recent terrorist attack."

 That a constitutional provision - revered by conservatives and
liberals alike - could be so easily and bluntly assailed is frightening. No
congressional hearings were held; there was no public debate. The few in
Congress saw fit to speak for the many.

 And unlike some of the other expanded law enforcement provisions in
the anti-terrorism bill, this secret search language doesn't have a
"sunset" deadline or a date certain when the law would have to be
reaffirmed or stricken from the books.

MOTHER OF ALL CARNIVORES

 At the same time that the FBI is being allowed to rummage through
your personal effects - imagine a glove-wearing agent finger-dancing his
way across your keyboard and joy-riding through your hard disk, all without
your knowledge - the agency also is putting the final touches on a
technical plan to funnel all electronic communications through an
easy-to-wiretap electronic pipe.

The plan would require all Internet service providers to reconfigure their
e-mail systems to better facilitate FBI wiretapping. It is a capability the
FBI has been lusting after since the laws were changed in 1994 mandating
that all telephone companies build in capabilities for the FBI to more
easily tap the country's telephone system.

 "It's clear [the FBI has] decided that in the next year or so they
are going to make a big push on [electronic communication] and they are
going to use whatever leverage they can to get people to cooperate," said
Stewart Baker, former general counsel for the National Security Agency and
now a lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson. Baker, who made his remarks at a
recent seminar, said the FBI would be doing so to ensure that e-mail
systems "are more wiretap-friendly than the ones we have today."

 Again, such developments have been in the works for years, with the
agency running into a stone wall from civil libertarians, ISPs resisting
the implementation of what is essentially a window on the soul of their
networks. But the bureau is exploiting the dulled senses of an American
public still trying to shake off the shock of the Sept. 11 attacks. The
catch: This is a one-way window, and we're on the wrong side of it.

NAKED TO THE WORLD

 It is dangerous to be nearsighted in times of crisis. All the
changes happening now affecting your online privacy or allowing your
personal information to be stored online will continue to do so, with no
end in sight.

 "Big deal! I have nothing to hide!" I hear you shouting.
 I know you're shouting it, because I've answered that question from
hundreds of you who have cared to write asking for an answer.

 I posed the same question to A.P., a long-time reader of this column
who also happens to be a criminal defense attorney.

 "'I have nothing to hide' from whom?" asks A.P. "Is it from the
police as we now know them? Then you don't know some of the police I know.
Is it from the politicians? Then think what you were saying about
politicians one year or five years ago," he says.

 "Our founding fathers were, to George III, not heroes; rather, they
were 'terrorists,'" A.P. says. "They blew stuff up, destroyed property and
openly demanded and fomented rebellion. They wanted protection from open
warrants predicated upon the unsubstantiated allegations of unknown and
untested informants, the burdens that George had placed on them," he says.
 Do we, as a country governed by "mostly ordinary people," really
want them deciding what is best for our families? A.P. asks. "Are we to
return to government by rumor and threat?" he asks.

 The current concerns about the loss of privacy and increased
security go far beyond the airport, bus or train station.

 "We are talking about being secure in our thoughts, words and
deeds," A.P. says. "Are we, as a people, willing to risk the loss of the
right to dissent, the right to criticize our government, the right to elect
someone different? It might not happen overnight or all at once, but it is
the little erosions that frighten me and should frighten everyone else."

###

Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---


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