Homeland Security... or invasion of privacy?

The New York Times ^ | November 14, 2002 | William Saffire

[Ian McGreggor]

WASHINGTON — If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you — passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance — and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.

Complete article here...

[Ian McGreggor]

Is this Homeland Security or just invasion of privacy? How about taking care of our border problems and/or concntrating on those 'groups of people' who are more likely to commit atrocities agaisnt the US, instead of jacking Jane and Joe Sixpack around?

[WRhine]

Is this Homeland Security or just invasion of privacy? How about taking care of our border problems and/or concntrating on those 'groups of people' who are more likely to commit atrocities agaisnt the US, instead of jacking Jane and Joe Sixpack around?

All excellent questions that our "so-called" leaders are "purposely" ignoring.

[gnarledmaw]

Its everything Clinton ever wanted in a new flavor thats more palatable to sheep...

[Sacajaweau]

I'd say they have all that available now. I'm not into phoney passports or scamming folks. They're just dealing with ordinary records on 99% of the folks.

[Action-America]

Both political parties are clearly using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to circumvent our Constitutional protections, particularly those guaranteed us under the Fourth Amendment.

This is evident in the USA Patriot Act.  Out of 367 pages of law in the USA Patriot Act, 125 pages have nothing to do with anything other than US banking and finance.  This is particularly interesting, since our various spook agencies have told us that the terrorists do not use our banking system to launder money.  They use the Arab banking system, that we have no control over.

What this amounts to is that more than one-third of the USA Patriot Act is not aimed at terrorists, but instead, represents a direct assault on privacy in US banking and finance.

The Homeland Security Act is just another assault on our Constitutional protections, by BOTH parties.