Perspective: Patriot Act redux?

With Election Day fast approaching, it was only a matter of time before the usual congressional shenanigans that typically punctuate the political season.

This time, politicians appear to have seized on what could be called the Patriot Act strategy, drafting antiterrorism legislation in secret and then ramming it through the Senate and House of Representatives with minimal debate. Then it's back to the home districts to boast how they protected voters from the bad guys.

The vehicles chosen for this strategy are two bills described as being inspired by the 9/11 Commission's report, a politically potent text that's become a best-selling book. The Senate and House have approved their own versions of the legislation, and negotiators are now meeting privately to decide on the final draft.

Early indications are not promising. While portions of the massive legislation are no doubt praiseworthy, other important sections--especially those envisioning stuffing more information into government databases--deserve special scrutiny from privacy hawks.

Both the House and Senate bills coerce state governments into creating what critics are calling a national ID card.

Because the House version is nearly three times as long, its authors had more room to promote private agendas.

One section anticipates storing the "lifetime travel history of each foreign national or United States citizen" into a database for the convenience of government officials. It mentions passports, but there's nothing that would preclude recording the details of trips that Americans take inside the United States.

President Bush would be required to create a "secure information sharing" network to exchange data among law enforcement, military and spy agencies. Aside from a bland assurance that "civil liberties" will be protected, there are zero details on what databases will be vacuumed in or what oversight will take place.

A second network would be created by the first person to get the new job of national intelligence director. That network must "provide immediate access to information in databases of federal law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community that is necessary to identify terrorists."

It hardly needs to be said that snaring terrorists is what our government should be doing. But it's not clear that the House bill is a step in the right direction.

Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, hopes that the aides negotiating the final bill end up adopting the Senate language instead. It also would create an information-sharing network--while requiring that Congress receive semiannual reports on how the network is being used.

"There are dozens if not hundreds of government programs under way to do just that (already)," Dempsey warns. "They are fragmented; they are overlapping. They are occurring outside of any framework of oversight."

Still, the Senate bill is no prize. A last-minute amendment added by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would require the Department of Homeland Security to create an "integrated screening system" inside the United States.

McCain envisions erecting physical checkpoints, dubbed "screening points," near subways, airports, bus stations, train stations, federal buildings, telephone companies, Internet hubs and any other "critical infrastructure" facility deemed vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Secretary Tom Ridge would appear to be authorized to issue new federal IDs--with biometric identifiers--that Americans could be required to show at checkpoints.

Both the House and Senate bills Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, is no fan of either bill. "They say that if we just put appropriate rules and restrictions in place, everything will be fine," Harper said. "But of course those rules and restrictions will drop away over the years or if there are new terrorist attacks. They say, 'Of course lion-taming is safe. They're our friends.' But then one day the lion grabs you by the neck and drags you off the stage."

A few other courageous Washingtonians have raised similar concerns. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, warned last week that the House bill "will not make America safer (but will definitely) make us less free." And 25 former senior officials from the FBI, CIA and military have sent a letter to Congress indicating that the 9/11 Commission's recommendations are flawed because the report whitewashed what went wrong on Sept. 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, with only 15 days left before the election, politicians will be tempted to place expedience over sober analysis of what's permitted by the U.S. Constitution. That's what happened in October 2001 with the mad scramble to enact the Patriot Act, and history is about to repeat itself.

Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.

More Perspectives

Three Questions

1. How is an 'immutable audit' implemented?

2. How policy-based access enforced?

3. How is identification-by-biometric sensors integrated with identity management given that with wide-areas sensor systems (see Intel's IrisNet) the identified party does not opt-in?

These are the questions we have to answer before implementation begins.

[oregonnerd]

establishment of checkpoints

I would expect the establishment of checkpoints as well on major highways, probably between states. If this does occur, the primary purpose of this action has at least apparently become geographical control, which is the first step in establishing more effective governmental control over the populace.
Glenn Charles

[My-Self]

BACK IN THE USSR ...

Years ago, USSR (along with China and other "nice" places) had to create internal frontiers and restrict people's movements to track them and achieve their surveillance goals.

Now, with RFID, biometry cards, giant databases, powerful data mining, location tracking phones, communication interception, post-processed video cameras everywhere, our governments have gone far beyond what those dictators ever though of going.

Ain't it about time for technology aware peoples to speak up ?

Technology Aware may support such things

Technology aware folks are just as likely to be ok with the idea of border checks, etc. Most technology people are in the corporate sector which of course leans heavily in the usual fear-induced living that we have been bombarded with from the government (now that we have had a corporate take over of it) which works right in line with fear of pay cuts and job cuts.

While many high level executives are getting bigger pay outs, the average corporate, technology worker is not getting those benefits anymore. They are threatened by economic downsizing all over, and so competion becomes more fierce, etc. This feeds a cycle of fear and loathing that typifies most americans now. And in such environments the ugly forms of nationalism can take root. Scape goats are found and freedoms lost in the name of security.

Why should technology aware people be any different? Just because they understand how something works doesn't make then any more likely to see the inherent dangers. Those who pioneered television would be aghast at what it has become and created. Obviously some technology people re-alined technology for the abusers.

FedGov as a religion

Ah, yes, the Federal Government, in fighting radical Islam, has begun to take on the aspects of a religion. No longer is it content to simply administer laws governing geographic areas. Now, it wants to catalog and control human flesh. It demands tribute and it will not be denied. With the addition of thumb-scanning (hand) or iris-scanning (head), the Federal Government will become a state-sponsored religion that closely resembles the final state of affairs in the book of Revelations:

He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.

What will the non-believers do?