by Dean Hartwell
Governments
have a way of saying one thing and meaning quite another. Observing this trend, Huey Long once
remarked, "Fascism will come [to the
The Bush Administration recently created an office called the “Information Awareness Office.” Unlike the Freedom of Information Act, however, this new office does not provide the people with information about the government. Instead, it takes information about people and gives it to the government.
What kind of information will this office
handle?
Your credit card purchases, your travel
reservations, your medical treatment and just about everything else you might
consider private matters. All of this
information will allow our government to spy on us.
What did our elected officials do when
confronted with this office?
Nothing. No
one in Congress has spoken out about how this law erodes our privacy by putting
us under constant surveillance.
Nor will this office, which the upcoming
Homeland Security Department will likely use, actually make us more secure. If the government wants to catch criminals
with this office, it ought to consider that few of them will sign their names
to credit card statements, travel plans or other documents that the Information
Awareness Office will collect.
If you are still not sure about the office,
consider the person who concocted this idea of creating it: John Poindexter. This former National Security Advisor
collaborated with others in the Reagan Administration to sell weapons to the
Ayatollah in
It is our privacy that the Information
Awareness Office threatens to destroy. If
we really value it, we must take it upon ourselves to become more aware of what
our government does.