Wherefore Liberty?…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:44 AM Permalink

…Where has it gone? How did we allow ourselves to have our phones, computers, bank records, medical records and more made so easy for the government to access without cause? Where was the outrage at bush having the Pentagon and NSA turn our most powerful spy satellites inward against innocent citizens? Why is the idea of a "terrorist" watch list with several hundreds of thousands of names on it, rendering it useless, seemingly okay?

Now more spying upon our citizens is happening again at our borders where the government is tracking the movements of American citizens accused of nothing.:

The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations.

Officials say the Border Crossing Information system, disclosed last month by the Department of Homeland Security in a Federal Register notice, is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats. It also reflects the growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections.[…]

The data could be used beyond determining whether a person may enter the United States. For instance, information may be shared with foreign agencies when relevant to their hiring or contracting decisions.[…]

"This database is, in a sense, worse than a watch list," [Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology] said. "At least in the watch-list scenario, there's some reason why the name got on the list. Here, the only thing a person does to come to the attention of DHS is to lawfully cross the border. The theory of this data collection is: Track everyone -- just in case."

"Track everyone -- just in case."

Where do I go to have a GPS chip implanted -- if they haven't already installed one.

Labels: DHS, NSA, spying, state power, Terrorism