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Database creates concern
The question involving the trade-off between liberty and security was answered Tuesday.
Liberty appears to have lost.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted 299 to 121 to enact HR 5005, also known as the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The Senate voted Tuesday 90-9 in favor of the bill.
The main purpose of this legislation is to make the government more efficient by creating a cabinet level Department of Homeland Security. This department will combine 22 federal agencies under one roof. Included are the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the U.S. Border Patrol.
This law will allow pilots to have guns in airplane cockpits. It also grants the president authority to hire and fire federal employees in the name of national security.
Minnesota U.S. Congressman Mark Kennedy (R-2nd Dist.), whose district includes St. Cloud, voted yes to this law.�
“We are painfully aware of how our nation and world have changed since Sept. 11,” Kennedy said in a statement on his Web site. “New threats require new thinking. The Department of Homeland Security will centralize and coordinate our efforts to ensure government’s most basic function –– protecting its citizens.”
However, parts of the law—including warrantless searches, possible forced vaccinations of communities and federal neighborhood watch programs –– are causing great concern among civil libertarians.
Local reactions were mixed.
“This seems a bad trade for a little extra security,” said Economics Chair and College Libertarians advisor King Banaian. “Those that would think you can limit this to just a little extra loss of privacy will find out that no deal with the power-grabbers in Washington is ever final. They always come back for more.”
Others support the new law.
“I feel the Homeland Security (Act) will open the line of communication between the different agencies,” said Betsy Byma, a member of College Republicans. “This will allow more efficiency to protect our nation’s security.
“In regard to civil liberties being compromised, I would take a ‘wait and see’ attitude.�Sometimes things are worse on paper than in reality.”
To some critics, the most troubling part is what New York Times columnist William Safire labeled, “a super snoop’s dream.” This part of the law will loosen several privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, which will allow the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to use its Information Awareness Office to implement what it calls “Total Information Awareness.”
The mission statement of the Total Information Awareness office is “to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists, decipher their plans and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts.”
This law will allow the IAO to include American citizens in their list of suspects.
The practical result of this will be the creation of a huge database of all interactions anyone has with business or government, from which those interactions by terrorists are to be sifted.
Included in each person’s database will be such things as: every magazine subscribed to, every prescription for medication, every Web site visited, every e-mail message sent or received, every grade earned from any educational institution, every ATM transaction made, every commercial airline flight, every toll booth traveled through, every parking garage entered where license numbers are recorded, every bank deposit and withdrawal made, every credit card transaction, every call made on a wireless phone, every lawsuit or legal action, every book checked out of a library and every visit made to a doctor or hospital.
This law originally started as a 32-page proposal sent to Congress by President George W. Bush. As it moved through Congress, amendments filled expanded the bill to 282 pages. Its final form has more than 500 pages.
There was some early doubt as to whether the bill would pass in the Senate without amendment.�Indeed, the Senate did make a couple of technical changes to the bill.�This will send it back to the House which will provide final approval in a voice vote next week.
Minnesota’s U.S. Representatives Gil Gutknecht (R-1st Dist.), Mark Kennedy (R-2nd Dist.), Bill Luther (D-6th Dist.), Collin Peterson (D-7th Dist.) and Jim Ramstad (R-3rd Dist.) voted in favor of the bill, while Representatives Betty McCollum (D-4th Dist.), James Oberstar (D-8th Dist.) and Martin Sabo (D-5th Dist.) voted against it. Senators Mark Dayton (Dem.) and Dean Barkley (Ind.) both voted in favor of the bill.
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