Pentagon data mining: Just say 'no'

When East and West Germany were reunited some 13 years ago, those of us in democratic countries -- not to mention the East Germans themselves -- were aghast at the amount of private information the state had compiled on average citizens. The East German Stasi, or secret police, had developed its spy network so vigorously that according to some estimates there was one spy for every 6.5 people.

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But although we were aghast, we were grateful that we lived in a democracy -- that that our government didn't do things like that to us. That has changed. Unless you have been living in a cave, you're aware of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, the goal of which is to accumulate every bit of transactional online data worldwide and use data mining techniques to provide intelligence information.

Privacy advocates of all political persuasions are in an uproar, but this is something that should engage anyone who conducts any business that finds its way online. TIA will give the Pentagon access to your credit card data, school records, medical information, travel history, church affiliation, gun ownership, ammunition purchases, library records, video rentals, you name it.

This will all be collected into a database, the purpose of which is ostensibly to fight terrorism, but which will present a massive opportunity for government abuse. There comes a point in almost every science fiction "B" movie where someone suggests that the new invention can be beneficial, but will be dangerous if "it falls into the wrong hands."

The problem is that this technology has not only fallen into the wrong hands, it was conceived by "the wrong hands." The chief architect of this new data gathering and mining scheme is none other than John Poindexter. Those who are old enough will remember him from the arms-for-hostages scandal, in which many of the arms currently threatening us in the Middle East were illegally traded to Iran by the Reagan administration.

Poindexter subsequently was convicted of several felonies, including conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice. The convictions were later overturned on a technicality. The disgraced former admiral re-entered public life this year as a civilian Pentagon employee.

We can assume there will be those who defend the TIA program, and the most common -- although totally ineffective -- defense will be "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." That is simply wrong, and we've already seen in the anti-terrorism campaign how innocent people can be harassed and intimidated for political reasons.

Others will claim that the goal of rooting out terrorists somehow justifies this intrusion into our private lives. This is a dangerous Utilitarian approach, in which we allow the end -- stopping terrorists -- to justify any means, in this case truly repugnant ones. There are some things that a free society should not do, no matter how good the results.

Still others will claim that we need to trust our government to do the right thing. I believe we need to have a healthy suspicion of government, especially when it invades our personal lives, and more so when the potential exists for grievous harm. In this case, the head of the program has already proven that he is untrustworthy and willing to break the law for his personal and political aims.

As I write this, CNN is informing us that the FBI has "lost control" of a watch list created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The list, apparently shared indiscriminately with third parties, has appeared on Web sites and, according to the FBI, is being used by some companies in lieu of background checks on individuals. Making matters worse, some of the people on the list are no longer suspects, thus giving lie to the argument that if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

Some may complain that the objections to the program are politically motivated. Privacy, as others have pointed out, is not a partisan issue. It is a basic human right. If we allow this program to continue, we will have ceded one of our most important rights and will have taken yet one more step toward turning our democracy into a loathsome police state.

It could be that the danger of terrorism is so great and so pervasive that we need to sign away our basic rights in order to gain some measure of security. However, if that's the case, it should be done after careful deliberation and intense and open public discussion, not at the whim of a disgraced unelected bureaucrat working in secret. If we are to trade our rights and liberties for security -- or, as some have claimed, a false illusion of security -- it should be something we choose through our elected representatives.

We've already seen, just this week, a secret court give the Justice Department broad powers to spy on citizens with little constitutional restraint. Your ISP, whether it likes it or not, is now an agent of the government. You can be spied upon and your files searched without your consent or your knowledge. This is an awesome power, and there are no checks or balances now in place to ensure that it is used properly.

We are in the midst of vast fundamental changes in the body of rights, legal and moral, that we have taken for granted for so long. I am constantly amazed at how passively most people have accepted these changes, which will affect the way we live and work. It is a dangerous path on which false beginnings and missteps along the way can end in disaster.

If we scroll down to the bottom line, we find that the TIA project places too much information on too many people into the hands of too few people with too little oversight. It portends disaster.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, one of the first things that happened in East Germany was that thousands of citizens stormed Stasi headquarters to seize the records and find out who the spies were and what records had been kept. We have the opportunity to put the brakes on here before the situation becomes that grave. Perhaps it's time for people to shake off their post-9/11 stupor and find out what mischief is being done under the guise of fighting terrorism. You may not like what you see.