George Orwell wrote "1984". George Bush and friends seem to have decided we're 20 years behind schedule and need to catch up.
like a science fiction nightmare to Americans 100 years ago.
We go on Amazon.com to buy a book and are presented with a list of books that "we thought you might also like". That means they've got a profile of our reading likes and dislikes. This is one of the more benign examples of profiling.
Marketers everywhere are using computers to create profiles of all of us. Ashcroft and people like him will want this information. When a particular profile is correlated statistically to an undesirable behavior (like engaging in prostitution as a buyer or seller), and action is taken (for example, extra surveillance) against the people who fit the profile, we move into this nightmarish way of living.
For minority people, it is already happening. "Racial profiling" results in more traffic stops for young black men.
I just shake my head when people say that those who oppose our further loss of privacy rights are being paranoid, and wonder what it will take to wake them up.
As laughable as it may sound, the FBI/Homeland Security recently issued an advisory about those who purchase and are seen carrying almanacs. Seems the government has decided that almanacs and maps would be perfect information tools for terrorists striking out at U.S. targets.
One thing I wonder about is whether our government tracks when you type code words such as "anthrax" or "small pox" into Google or the PUBMED database. There is, after all, a tremendous amount of information on these infectious agents on the web.
The interesting thing is that, through government programs such as DARPA, the U.S. government is soliciting research scientists to participate in anti-bioterror research. To prepare grant proposals, however, researchers have to do extensive prior research (i.e., publish in peer-reviewed journals) and conduct literature searches. These activities might cause such a researcher to end up one of these "suspicious activities" lists.
Possibly the above might be just paranoid delusions. But it is true that the Feds went after one of our preeminent microbiologists, Thomas Butler, and effectively ended his scientific career, largely because he couldn't accurately document the destruction of plague samples.
-- Modified on 2/16/2004 8:52:28 PM
Nope, not funny, not even strange. This is exactly what Homeland Security is really about. Now that the American public has been scared brainless about "terrorism", it can be, and is being, used to justify any and every assault on civil liberties.
Another example. The new law regarding "cofidentiality" of medical records. If it weren't so deadly serious THAT would be laughable. Behind a smoke screen of Godawful regulations making it a nightmare to share records between my (say) primary care doctor and my orthopedist, the real confidentiality, protection from government snooping, has been quietly abolished.
And corparate America is right behind, demanding their "right" to this information in order to "fully and properly" evaluate job applicants. These barbarians haven't crashed the gate yet, but they're out front with a battering ram.
And the list goes on...
The so-called Medical Privacy Act (HIPPA) is a joke. The administration plans to demand access to medical records pertaining to abortion, even though the same administration has excluded abortion from medical services reimbursable by government health care programs.
I just spent a day on jury duty. It absolutely ASTOUNDED me how little privacy prospective jurors have. The judge asked those of us who were picked for empanelment INCREDIBLY personal questions, including some that clearly would have prejudiced legal cases in which the prospective jurors were themselves involved, and also seemingly personal questions about where we worked, where our spouses, parents, or children worked, our own legal histories, etc.
At the same time, I've been told I can no longer file my medical charts alphabetically in a locked room because it makes them too accessible to people who might want to violate my patients' privacy!
Remember in Orwell's book the passage about "Newspeak." It was a way of putting nonsensical meanings on everyday words/phrases.
For instance:
WAR IS PEACE
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Sound familiar? Preemptive war in Iraq, we are told, will bring us peace.
The President doesn't read newspapers. He wants to stay ignorant and do what he sees fit. He is a strong leader. Sound familiar?
The CLEAN AIR ACT exempts huge polluters from government regulation, allowing them to poison the atmosphere.
TORT REFORM takes away the rights of the average citizen in favor of corporations.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND robs our schools of funds and makes the students go through a bunch of testing instead of using the money to educate.
Bush is closer to Orwell's world than we think......
-- Modified on 2/17/2004 11:19:50 AM
-- Modified on 2/17/2004 11:21:09 AM