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Reportedly, the new system will use high-tech "data mining" to gather information from multiple databases, link individuals and groups, and share information efficiently. Never mind that Pentagon computer scientists believe that terrorists could easily avoid detection, leaving bureaucrats with about 200 million dossiers on totally innocent Americans — instant access to e-mail, web surfing, and phone records, credit-card and banking transactions, prescription-drug purchases, travel data, and court records. If Total Information Awareness were the first and only budding threat to civil liberties, opponents might be less apprehensive. But against a backdrop of multiple laws, executive orders, and proposals — all potentially troublesome to hardcore Bill of Rights devotees — our constitutional watchdogs are justifiably uneasy. Here are a few of their grievances:
Of course, advocates of expanded executive power remind civil libertarians that President Bush is an honorable man who understands that the Constitution is made of more than tissue paper. That argument is simply not persuasive — even to those who fervently share its underlying premise. The policies that are put in place by this administration are precedent-setting. Bush supporters need to reflect on the same powers in the hands of his predecessor or his successors. Here's the guiding principle: In the post-9/11 environment, no rational person believes that civil liberties are inviolable. After all, government's primary obligation is to secure the lives of American citizens. But when government begins to chip away at our liberties, we must insist that it jump through a couple of hoops. First, government must offer compelling evidence that its new and intrusive programs will make us safer. Second, government must convince us that there is no less invasive means of attaining the same ends. In too many instances, those dual burdens have not been met. If administration critics have a single overriding concern about policies adopted in the wake of 9/11, it is this: The president and the attorney general have concentrated too much unchecked authority in the hands of the executive branch — compromising the doctrine of separation of powers, which has been a cornerstone of our Constitution for more than two centuries. Those persons who would unhesitatingly tradeoff civil liberties in return for national security proclaim that concentrated power is necessary for Americans to remain free. Yet there's an obvious corollary that's too often missed: Unless Americans remain free, they will never be secure. — Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. |
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hen
a former Iran-Contra defendant gets appointed to run a little-known Defense
Department operation called "Total Information Awareness," then
posts a sign on his office stating that "Knowledge Is Power,"
civil libertarians, not surprisingly, are exercised. Admiral John Poindexter
may be suited for the job, but is the job suited for a free society that
has, until recently, fastidiously safeguarded the privacy of its citizens?
The
USA PATRIOT Act: Ordinarily, advance judicial authorization of executive
actions, followed by judicial review to assure that officials haven't
misbehaved, shields us from excessive concentrations of power in a single
branch of government. Under the PATRIOT Act, however, the executive branch
has overwhelming if not exclusive power. Judicial checks and balances
are conspicuously absent.
