After the attacks of Sept. 11, the government told us that our country’s lax regulations allowed these terrorists to train within our borders. True, the government did acknowledge that several “rogue” Middle Eastern nations created an environment for these terrorists to prosper, but the fact that they trained in America was a catalyst for public outrage. We all know what happened and the resulting war that we currently wage on a certain wealthy Saudi man whose film and audio career has been hampered by the poor production techniques of Al-Jazeera television and the occasional bomb being dropped a tad too close for his comfort. The “War on Terror,” another name for American troops chasing Osama bin Laden around the deserts and caves of Afghanistan, holds the potential to drastically disrupt our right to privacy.
The Pentagon is working on a plan that would create an information database on every person in this country. The main subject of government interest would be commercial purchases. The governmental agency in charge of developing this project has stated that this database would only be used to look for suspicious people buying suspicious items.
Well, how exactly does one define suspicious? My roommate has an awesome fascination with fire. Does that make him suspicious? Also, the same roommate has just purchased a commercial-strength pellet gun. This seems to match the suspicious person with a suspicious purchase requirement of getting a nice interview with a few friendly gentlemen from the FBI.
Also, the brainiacs in Washington just recently decided that a plan to require Internet users to ante up a fingerprint or voice verification was a bad idea. The plan would have required everyone to have a biometric signature-either a fingerprint or some kind of personal identifier-and would have attached this biometric signature to everything that individual did on the Internet. And, in true government form, they even came up with a catchy term for this technique-eDNA.
I know this makes a lot of people nervous. Be thankful the government decided that this particular project was not a feasible goal.
However, a few of the crackdowns on Internet privacy have already become a part of our law. The Cyber Security Enhancement Act, passed recently, allows police to eavesdrop on phone conversations and Internet activity without obtaining a court order beforehand.
Courts have also ruled that if one is considered a terror suspect, then police can monitor everything that individual does on the Internet, even record their single keystrokes. This would all be very impressive science if not for the social implications of such monitoring.
I agree that we, as a nation, were not ready for attacks the magnitude of what happened on Sept. 11. And I also agree that the government should use whatever resources available to prevent this kind of attack from happening again. But the government must walk a fine line between detecting terrorist activity and intruding on the rights of Americans.
While the idea of having every piece of information available to protect the innocent is noble, the idea of a snooping government hungry for information is unnerving.
Josh Johnson is a junior broadcast meteorology major.