2004 is 1984: American government continues their drive for total, real-time, life-long tracking of all movement of its "citizens".

Troy Angrignon

Oct 18, 2004 • 2 min read

Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET News, covers the next degree of heat in the boiling frog pot otherwise known as the American government’s plan to track every American citizen’s communications, travel, finances, relationships, and lives from cradle to grave. This time,

One section of the new proposed legislation:

“…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.”

Another section in the Senate legislation proposes setting up:

an “integrated screening system” inside the United States. [Senator John] 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.

In other words, you will be required to carry your national ID card which contains biometric (finger-print or retina scan) data) and then show it at all checkpoints along your trip. What the f**k is going on here? How is this possible? What has happened to the wild west? What has happened to the fiery independence of the forefathers of your country who said, “No more Britain, no more Queen, no more taxes, no more control.” Your government has turned into one of the most Orwellian right-wing surveillance loving countries in the world all while saying, “and you will also have your civil liberties.” Your citizens continue to bend over and take it, because you’re trading your virginity for being kept safe from Witches, Communists, Pinkos, Terrorists. With each degree that your government adds to the pot, the American frog citizens say:

“Hmmm, another degree, well, it’s not that bad – I mean, I only have to spend three hours in the airport being asked lots of questions by poorly trained screeners, getting booted off the plane because the no-fly list rocketed from 16 people to 20,000 people, and show my biometric ID everywhere I go in the country. But it’s okay because it’s keeping me safe from terrorists.”

Bullshit.

Your own government is keeping you terrified far more than anybody else would.

The sad thing is that from here in Canada, where we would rather spend money on healthcare and cheap submarines, we don’t have the money to spend tracking each and every person. In fact, I don’t think we actually care that much. Sure we have the CSE, our version of your NSA. But I’m betting it has 1/1000th of the black budget. Our CSE guys are probably lucky to get two-year old desktop computers and some spare servers from Revenue Canada. Even our Joint Task Force (the Canadian version of the Navy Seals) has only a few hundred soldiers on active duty.

We watch the American citizen’s march towards the abyss of complete and total surveillance but we can’ t look away. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion – horrible, yet so intriguing.

As I have said before, we Canadians love you Americans, we just despise your government of the day. Kind of like the rest of the world. Feel free to move up here anytime. In fact, we may even accept you as refugees if you have to dodge the new draft that may be on its way.

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