The bill allows the federal government to maintain extensive files on each and every American without limitations: Senator Feingold

WASHINGTON, November 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The homeland security measure passed by Congress has sparked a flood of criticism from privacy and civil liberties advocates, who argue that the bill may move the U.S. closer to a police state.

The bill sought by President George W. Bush, advocates a massive government reorganization to create a new Department of Homeland Security, and gives the agency powerful new tools to thwart “potential terrorist attacks”.

But some critics fear the measure also may increase secret surveillance and reduce privacy protections that Americans have taken for granted.

The measure “potentially allows the federal government to maintain extensive files on each and every American without limitations,” said Senator Russ Feingold, who voted against the bill.

“It also weakens important safeguards on government access to our e-mails and information about what we do on the Internet without the need for a court order.”

A particular concern is the last-minute insertion of the controversial CyberSecurity Enhancement Act, which had been a separate bill stalled in Congress that expands the ability of authorities to obtain information from telecom and Internet service providers.

“The contents of e-mail messages or instant messages could be given to any government official under a so-called emergency provision even when such a disclosure in not reasonable and does not deal with an imminent threat of injury,” says the free-speech Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.

Lee Tien, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the law could be challenged in the courts but that in practice, it is hard to know if the government is carrying out secret surveillance.

“If you’re an innocent person who was wrongly surveilled, you will never know,” Tien said.

“There is no notice ever to the person who is the victim of the surveillance unless authorities use this in a criminal proceeding, so trying to challenge or obtain redress becomes very hard.”

The bill does not specifically authorize a controversial Pentagon project aimed at creating huge electronic databases to monitor for signs of terrorist activities, called Total Information Awareness (TIA).

But critics say the use of that effort with expanded authority under the new legislation could lead to an unprecedented assault on privacy.

“We do not want the federal government to become the proverbial ‘Big Brother,’” said Senator Patrick Leahy.

“The public’s most sensitive e-mails, Web transactions, and instant messages sent to loved ones, business associates, doctors and lawyers, and friends deserve the highest level of privacy we can provide.

“The provisions of (this bill) make a mockery of our privacy laws,” he stressed.

Supporters say the bill will help deploy new technology in the defense of homeland security.

“This is a major step towards a safer, more secure American public,” said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a lobby group for big high-tech firms.

“This legislation removes impediments to fielding the best IT solutions for the public (in response to) a constantly changing terrorist threat.”

Others say that giving the government the ability to secretly collect information without court orders or other checks is a recipe for abuse, noting the McCarthy era and secret files on civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

“Whenever we have these kind of investigative and knowledge databases in the hands of government officials without accountability, they use it against political enemies,” said Tien.

The provisions of (this bill) make a mockery of our privacy laws: Senator Leahy

Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said the law flies in the face of the presumption of most Americans that their communications will be private and that law enforcement must have some court supervision.

“We could create a completely safe state but our country would become a police state, and that is not a bargain that our constitution has given,” he said.

The Pentagon had announced earlier that the U.S. government is to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen.

Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, told reporters that the Pentagon is developing a prototype database to seek “patterns indicative of terrorist activity,” reported Fox News network Thursday, November 21.

Aldridge said the database would collect and use software to analyze consumer purchases in hopes of catching terrorists before it is too late.

“The bottom line is this is an important research project to determine the feasibility of using certain transactions and events to discover and respond to terrorists before they act,” he said.

Aldridge said the database, which he called another “tool” in what he called the “war on terror”, would look for telltale signs of suspicious consumer behavior.

He cited examples as ‘sudden and large cash withdrawals, one-way air or rail travel, rental car transactions and purchases of firearms, chemicals or agents that could be used to produce biological or chemical weapons’.

It would also combine consumer information with visa records, passports, arrest records or reports of suspicious activity given to law enforcement or intelligence services.

On Monday, November 18, a federal court gave the U.S. Justice Department broad authority to use wiretaps and other surveillance methods in the hunt for terrorists, outraging civil libertarians who said it violated the constitution.

The court ruling, which reversed a May decision by a lower court, allowed for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to be amended by the Patriot Act passed by Congress following the September 11 attacks.

The Patriot Act expands Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s authority to intercept wire, oral and electronic communications as well as share criminal investigative information.

The FBI can now obtain permits for such activities from the typically more lenient and secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court instead of a regular criminal court.

The decision also allows the bureau to apply for such surveillance on cases not strictly terrorism-related.

Civil Libertarian organizations across the country condemned Monday’s ruling. “We are deeply disappointed with the decision, which suggests that this special court exists only to rubberstamp government applications for intrusive surveillance warrants,” said Ann Beeson, litigation director of the Technology and Liberty Program of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“As of today,” she added, “the Attorney General can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails, and conduct secret searches of Americans’ homes and offices.”

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the individual’s right to privacy.

A U.S. daily newspaper had reported earlier that the Pentagon is constructing a global computer-surveillance system which will give the United States access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world as part of the hunt for “terrorists around the globe”.

“A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world," the Washington Post reported Tuesday, November 12.

The system funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at about $200 million a year, would be able to sweep up and analyze data in a much more systematic way.

It would provide a more detailed look at data than the super-secret National Security Agency now has.  

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