Wired has an
article on the potential threats to our constitutional rights from Bush's second term. As someone in the computer security business, this is something with which I am all too familiar. But the forsaking of our individual rights must be something the Democratic Party fights, and it's a fight we can win. Even
Bob Barr, who is no friend to the Democrat Party, gets it:
As former Republican congressman Bob Barr states, "The administration has made it clear that they do intend to continue their move to dramatically reduce privacy and constitutional protection for our citizens."
A run down of specific policy issues inside...
Patriot Act
In his state-of-the-union speech last year, Bush urged Congress to renew certain provisions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of this year.
Barr and other civil liberties advocates expect that the administration, believing it has a mandate to gain the powers it wants, will also try to push through new Patriot Act II provisions, which the administration partly abandoned when their existence came to light and caused an uproar in 2003.
Wired tries to scrape some bits of optimism around this issue, pointing out the SAFE Act, the Senate's The Security and Freedom Ensured Act of 2003, or SB1709 and the House's corresponding HR3352 all attempt to scale down some of the Patriot Act's intrusiveness.
Data mining
Data mining, using computers and networks to search through large amounts of data for patterns, can be abused by the government to peek in on our private affairs:
Although laws prohibit the government from building dossiers on individuals, they don't prohibit the government from buying information from commercial data aggregators like Acxiom, ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, which collect information about citizens' web surfing, bank transactions, doctor visits and travel itineraries. And there are no laws governing how federal agencies can use the data.
Remember TIA?
National ID
The National Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act, passed at the end of 2004, brought us the pre-cursor to a National ID card.
Privacy advocates are concerned that rather than just preventing ID fraud, the data on cards could be linked to a national database containing dossiers of information gathered from other sources.
Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of the Privacy Journal, has said the new law "will have more serious consequences for individual liberties of American citizens than any other law enacted in at least two decades."
Yikes.
Privacy legislation and states' rights
California has generally been on the leading edge of protecting consumer rights. But our Congress has turned that around:
California experienced such a scuffle when Congress, bowing to pressure from business lobbyists, passed a law in 2003 that undid a California privacy regulation.
The state law would have let bank and brokerage customers prevent financial institutions from sharing their personal information -- such as bank balances, credit card purchases and stock holdings -- with affiliate companies.
DNA databases
On the other hand, California passed the DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act:
[The Act] allows authorities to take DNA samples from anyone -- adult or juvenile -- convicted of a felony. Currently, it also lets police collect samples from any adult arrested for specific felonies, such as sexual assault and murder, even before they are convicted.
But in 2009, that authority will expand to allow police to collect DNA samples from any suspect arrested for any felony -- including nonviolent crimes like residential burglary -- whether or not the person is charged or convicted. It's expected that genetic data for 1 million people -- including innocent suspects -- will be added to California's DNA databank by 2009, making it the largest state DNA databank in the country.
RFID tags
Finally, radio-frequency ID tags:
stores and companies embed RFID tags in the packaging of drugs and commercial products to help track product supplies and update orders. But privacy advocates say the tags will soon be embedded in clothing and other products, raising concerns that the tracking might not stop when consumers leave a store with the product.
Of course, Wal-Mart is a fully supports of RFID.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, sums all this up best:
"I really view privacy as a collective right. When someone else is forced to give up their privacy, yours could be the next to go."
I am a big fan of technology. Without it, I wouldn't have this. But there certainly is a dark, Orwellian side to our technological progress.
It's clear the Republicans are no longer the party of limited government. There is a big opportunity here for Democrats to champion this issue by fighting the Republicans on all of these initiatives.
Let's hope our elected officials take it.