Constant and complete surveillance is no longer material for a good science-fiction read or a paranoid joke: last Tuesday, Big Brother arrived.
An FBI announcement and separate Senate vote -- both of which were buried in the news cycle behind primary coverage and Roger Clemens's testimony on steroids -- quietly made February 12, 2008 an infamous day in the history of this country. These crippling blows to our civil liberties will most likely have a destructive effect on our personal privacy for years to come.
To kick off the festivities of "Big Brother Day" the FBI awarded a $1 billion, 10-year contract to Lockheed Martin for development of a massive computer database that stores a range of biometric information -- everything from finger and palm prints to iris scans and facial shapes. The database will enlarge the already sizeable amount of personal information -- which includes 55 million fingerprints -- held by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
While the database is ostensibly being built to protect the country from terrorists, a deeper and more sinister purpose seems to be at work. The FBI doesn't just track criminals through its current database; according to CNN, over 55 percent of background checks concern people applying for jobs with the Government or working with "vulnerable people such as children and the elderly." Also, the FBI plans to institute a new "rap-back" service that accepts fingerprints from employers so the Bureau can notify them if any employees get in trouble with the law.
And while the FBI was expanding its base of knowledge about every person, the Senate struck down another piece of privacy law. After a year of debate, the Senate voted last Tuesday to expand the Government's ability to spy on people around the world and close to home. In fact, the bill -- which is backed by the White House -- allows the Government to bypass the secret intelligence court -- the sole judicial check on the process -- and choose its own wiretapping and surveillance targets without warrants. Under the new guidelines, courts will only be able to review these actions after the fact, leaving the Executive Branch (read: the Bush Administration) with full autonomy to pick targets.
Again, the program is presumably designed to provide increased homeland security, but the effects could reach much further -- into personal cell phone conversations, for example. Without oversight from even a clandestine court, nothing stops the National Security Agency from eavesdropping on phone calls made by citizens with no ties to overseas terrorists in any form.
The firewall that has protected privacy rights in the past -- a little thing called the Fourth Amendment -- has eroded over the last decade. The Constitution gives people the undeniable right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" and mandates that warrants are necessary to perform "reasonable" searches. Unfortunately, the terrorists have struck fear into the heart of this country -- so much so that we are willing to give up one of our fundamental liberties for a slight promise of security.
Also contributing to the rapid deterioration of privacy is our Internet generation's general disregard for keeping personal information secret. Facebook profiles contain vast amounts of individual details that few in previous generations would have placed in the public domain. Many people even upload racy or inappropriate pictures of illicit behavior like underage drinking to their pages, where hundreds or even thousands of unknown people can potentially view them.
Arguing against the two recent privacy-bashing actions taken by our government can be difficult when our generation tends to take on such an ambivalent attitude toward a Constitutionally provided right. But, regardless of the rigor of Facebook privacy settings, we should be vocally resistant to giving the Government new and better ways to circumvent the laws enacted to protect us. Congressmen, afraid of looking "soft on terror," will never act in the people's interest by limiting unwarranted wiretaps and safeguarding our personal information until we step up and demand it.
Say goodbye to 1984, and say hello to 2008. Big Brother may not be watching us through the television yet, but Dick Cheney listening to our phone calls isn't much better.
