Most of us had to read \1984"" as high school students. It was interpreted as an attack on communism, and that this is what communism would mean if it were realized in America. For all of you English and literature majors, I'm sure you know this is not true; in fact, George Orwell was a socialist and was writing in opposition to fascism.
This miniscule difference is actually irrelevant to the situation at hand, but is important to understand when looking at the big picture. The United States has taken upon itself a severely Orwellian concept: total information awareness.
The Homeland Security Act has made it possible to attain a new method for ""fighting terrorism,"" monitoring every single American on virtually every aspect of his or her life. All the transactions you make, magazines you read, books you check out, e-mail you send and medical prescriptions you use will be added to your files within a ""virtual, centralized grand database.""
The plan is to collect data from various sources, commercial and governmental, and put them into a central location where officials can monitor them and crack down on terrorists. What does this mean?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created the Information Awareness Office.
Mr. John Poindexter, a convicted felon involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, will be the head of this new office. Poindexter was convicted on five felony counts in 1990 for misleading Congress and making false statements. These were overturned because Congress gave him immunity.
With a budget of $200 million, Poindexter has been given the authority to create computer dossiers on every American. This is by far the most intrusive domestic spying network ever created. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, has spoken out comparing the latest developments to a police state.
The claim that this will assist in the effort to seek out terrorists does not make any sense. Does Bush really think that by monitoring the activities of every single American, we will be able to stop terrorism? If anything, it will actually push the far right in the United States to commit acts of terror.
Edward Aldridge, Defense Under-Secretary, explains that the ""tracking of potential terrorists and terrorist acts require that we search for clues of such activities in a mass of data."" This includes monitoring books that we are reading to determine if we are ""potential terrorists.""
Since Sept. 11, the steps we have made in the direction of a police state have been huge. The PATRIOT Act, passed last October, increased the powers for intelligence agents to monitor citizens. The Bureau of Prisons, ordered by the U.S. Justice Department, altered its rules to allow the monitoring of lawyer-client conversations without court order or supervision. A presidential executive order set up military tribunals for those deemed by the Justice Department as ""enemy combatants,"" which has no legal definition.
Recent developments and legislation that support TIA include the right for criminal prosecutors to request the bugging of suspected terrorists. This gives the FBI the right to monitor Americans even if there is no probable cause to think a crime was committed.
Former Vice President Al Gore has spoken out on these recent developments: ""We have always held out the shibboleth of Big Brother as a nightmare vision of the future that we're going to avoid at all costs. They have now taken the most fateful step in the direction of that Big Brother nightmare that any President has ever allowed to occur.""
This country is heading in a devastating direction, and unless the public speaks up against these attacks on our freedoms, we can expect another Timothy McVeigh, and the perpetuation of terrorism. A police state is not how to fight terror. Spying on Americans is wrong and will only cause more harm than good.
Remember, Poindexter's motto is ""Scientia est potentia"" (Knowledge is Power), but for the rest of us, we must always remember: WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
