Truth is known to be stranger than fiction, but now truth outpaces even the most imaginative science fiction. Remember the Frank Herbert classic about the desert planet Dune and young Paul Atreides who, early in the book, foiled an assassination by a flying insect-sized poison dart? In the book, that took place millenia in the future, but already today we have tiny flying ?spy gnats? and implanted seed-like chips that can identify individuals and control the behavior of animals, including human beings... and they are already being employed, or soon will be.George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian on February 21, 2006, revealed that new British personal ?identity cards? will contain radio frequency identification chips which can be read with a scanner, so that police will be able scan a crowd (say, of war protestors) and identify every participant. Within a year, police will be able to send ?unmanned aerial vehicles? or UAVs, tiny drones just a few inches across, above such a gathering, controlled by someone sitting comfortably in a control room. They will then be able to record who is present on the ground below and what they're doing in real time. In addition, it will also be a simple matter to install those security cameras all about town, and include scanners so the police will have a record of who went where when.
What if you don?t carry your ID card? Sorry, the next generation of ?radio frequency identification tags? has been already developed by VeriChip corporation in the form of tiny radio transmitters the size of a grain of rice which can be injected into, for example, the upper arm. These chips are stable and will identify you for many years, require no power source, and become active only when scanned. As it happens, an Ohio company, City-Watchers, has already implanted these miniature radio transmitters into two of it workers, supposedly for security purposes, and to control who enters their strong room.
I have heard the U. S. Navy has enhanced versions of this device that they are testing on sharks (and maybe dolphins, who knows?). Apparently, they plan to to use them as underwater scouts or, perhaps, assassins. Like Mr. Monbiot, I foresee the use of such devices will gradually spread to human security workers, to criminals on parole, to asylum seekers, to soldiers in combat, to... their purpose will begin to creep, imperceptibly but inexorably, catching all in their surveillance net. Another nightmarish thought: how about electronically-controlled suicide bombers?
The infamous "USA PATRIOT Act" has, buried in its 315 pages of dense prose, some eye-popping clauses. For instance, there are invidious changes to U.S. code that order ?financial institutions? to reveal to the government all your records and everything they know about you, surrendering any papers or other evidence requested by the government no matter how intimate or confidential. Oh, by the way, it is crime for them even to tell you this has happened. Even more frightening, "financial institutions? have been re-defined to include not just banks but stock brokers, insurance companies, libraries, pharmacists, lawyers, doctors, jewelers, auto repair shops, even your local deli and the post office. In other words, you no longer have a privileged relationship with anyone, the government can read and confiscate your mail and your e-mail? and all without ever going to a judge to get a warrant. A self-written warrant called a National Security Letter is used instead, with no ?probable cause? required. To put it bluntly, the Fourth Amendment as well as the First Amendment have been abrogated.
This is, of course, done to protect us, the frightened citizenry, during the War on Terror.
FOILING BIG BROTHER
Offense vs. defense, the classical tug of war: for every offense there is developed a defense of some sort. Knowing that organizations like Greenpeace have been targeted, People for the American Way filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, asking the National Security Agency (NSA) to disclose how many people have been surveilled under its (illegal) wiretapping program. NSA refused to comply, and PFAW took them to court. You can do the same.
Other tactics to protect yourself and your privacy from government snooping:
1- Buy cell phones using prepaid calling minutes, paying with cash; have several different cell phone numbers.
2- Send any sensitive FAX from an anonymous cell phone using a service like this.
3- Use an anonymous e-mail address from a service like Hushmail and sign up for only the free service.
4- Use an encryption program like PGP to encrypt sensitive e-mails.
5- Copy sensitive e-mails to a CD or floppy disk, already encrypted in the form of an attachment, take the disk to an Internet caf? where you can buy anonymous Internet access. Create an anonymous account with Hushmail or something like it, copy the encrypted attachments to your messages, pay cash. And leave. (Thanks to the Sovereign Society for some of this advice).
It is extremely likely that any terrorists are already employing these dodges, and probably others. Which makes the no-warrant data mining bu NSA not worth all the time, expense, and trouble. As Gary D. Barnett, investment adviser, writes in a February 22, 2006 article:
Is this administration and the rest of the government really only wiretapping suspected terrorists, or is it much more far-reaching?... No politician can change the course we?re on. Only we as a people have the power to control our own destiny... If left unchecked, government will continue to grow and in time will consume us all.
We must stop this. Now.
Maybe Jon thinks his purse is boring. That was sort of the attitude of most Germans as the Gestapo and Storm Troopers began sweeping up their neighbors; or the NKVD, GPU, and later the KGB did the same in Red Russia. I hope you don't think Mr. Bush has made you safer with his policies, because the exact opposite is true. Wake up, young man, wake up.