During the current war on terror – including the war on Iraq – George Bush has arguably acted more and more like Big Brother, the omniscient dictator in George Orwell's 1984. Now that Bush has declared that the major combat operations against Iraq are over, he appears to be turning his sights towards enhanced domestic spying, one of the major elements of police states.
Just as Orwell's Big Brother claimed to be protecting his citizens from evil overseas countries, Bush babbles about how he is protecting U.S. citizens from all the nasty guys around the world who hate the U.S. because it is good.
And how does Bush go about protecting us, other than attacking other countries? Why he selectively suspends the right of habeas corpus – that is, to know what charges one is being held for – without the approval through legislation by the Congress, and he uses the military to do some of this. With the USA Patriot Act, Bush has gotten Congressional approval – unconstitutional in this writer's view – to conduct what are normally illegal – i.e., warrantless – searches and has made it easier for the FBI and other so-called federal law enforcement agencies to gather information on American citizens, regardless of whether or not the feds have legitimate probable cause to do so.
Citizens can now be made the subject of an investigation without having committed a crime!
And Bush and his minions reportedly want to make these unconstitutional provisions of the USA Patriot Act permanent. One of the provisions in either the Patriotic Act II bill or some other bill would give the federal government the authority to strip a person of his U.S. citizenship if the person were found to be in violation of the anti-terrorism laws.
"The Organs of State Security"
But even considering the above laws and proposed legislation, the Bush Administration has not gotten all that it wants in this area, and so it is trying to go even further in its drive to acquire police state powers.
Some months ago, the Bush Administration tried to start what is called the "Total Information Awareness" program in the Pentagon, a plan to set up a massive data base with files on all American citizens. Being managed by Ronald Reagan's former National Security Adviser of Iran-Contra infamy – John Poindexter – out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), this program drew enough flak from the Congress so that it was circumscribed in budget legislation.
Not to be stymied, the Bush Administration has come back like the Eveready Energizer bunny, now stealthily proposing to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon – read the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), DARPA, and the National Security Agency (NSA) – the authority to demand personal and financial records on people in the United States as part of foreign intelligence and terrorism operations.
According to a May 2 report in the New York Times, the surprise proposal – which was beaten back – was tucked into a broader intelligence authorization bill. It would have given the CIA and the military the authority to "…issue administrative subpoenas – known as "national security letters" – requiring Internet providers, credit card companies, libraries and a range of other organizations to produce materials like phone records, bank transactions and e-mail logs. That authority now rests with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the subpoenas do not require court approval."
Do not for one minute delude yourself into thinking that the Administration will stop trying to get this type of police state power and that such a plan would not work. One Republican Senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, now wants to hold hearings on this proposal. Contrary to what some might believe, running this program would not take a lot of paperwork. The various components of the U.S. intelligence community definitely have the capability to pull this off.
Here is one possible frightening scenario, which could easily take place. With the NSA's capability to intercept communications of all sorts – and few real enemies to apply that capability to – Fort Meade (the location of NSA's headquarters in Maryland) would turn its "Big Ears" loose on domestic targets. CIA would help fill in any gaps in coverage and would then be able to use John Poindexter's fancy data base software system to collate and analyze tons of information. Big Brother would truly have arrived.
One way or another, it appears that the Bush Administration wants the capability to spy on all people in this country. The breadth of proposed domestic spying initiatives and the persistence with which the Administration pursues them is both awesome and frightening.
And the Administration has apparently allied itself with intelligence community bureaucrats. As with all bureaucrats, those at CIA and the Pentagon just want to cover their tails and immunize themselves against prosecution for domestic spying. Thus, they have apparently convinced Bush and his minions to transform the U.S. intelligence community and FBI into an American equivalent of the former Soviet KGB – the Committee for State Security.
While Bush and his buddies will claim that they are only protecting America, in fact they are putting into place all the elements needed to turn the CIA, the NSA, DIA, DARPA and FBI into what the Russians used to fearfully refer to as "the Organs of State Security."
Will George become Big Brother or will his successor?
The Bush Administration's selective suspension of habeas corpus, treading upon other civil liberties, the USA Patriot Act, and the other proposals discussed above are all sufficient to transform this nation into a police state. While Congress may think that the Bush Administration would not use such powers against its political enemies or the public in general, on principle the public should never allow any president or administration to have such awesome authority. The fact that such power exists means it will eventually be used by a tyrant – a Big Brother – to secure dictatorial rule of this nation.
Having been students of history, our founding fathers knew that and must now be turning in their graves. If these police state powers are not repealed and new expanded powers are granted by the Congress, then those citizens who in the past have died to secure the liberties of U.S. citizens will have died in vain.
We certainly owe it to those who died for us and to ourselves and to future citizens to stop this new police state legislation, to abolish the USA Patriot Act, and to stop the Bush Administration's other abuses of civil liberties being conducted in the war on terrorism. If enough of us contact our Congressmen and tell them we oppose these police state monstrosities, they, too, will oppose such laws. After all, they want to stay in office, and nothing frightens Congressmen more than getting lots of letters and phone calls opposing what they are doing.
May 5, 2003
Jim Grichar (aka Exx-Gman) [send him mail], formerly an economist with the federal government, writes to “un-spin” the federal government’s attempt to con the public.
