Is Operation TIPS vile or what? I guess we have more of this sort of thing to look forward to, because I haven't heard too many "regular" people upset about it. It seems in our new, undending climate of fear, we should expect that our neighbors, utility workers, and neighborhood busybodies to ingorm on anything that isn't "normal" and anyone who looks "different".
Happily, the Postal Service has declined to participate, so no one will be turning me in because Mother Jones tries to get me to subscribe, or the ACLU sends me membership information, or because my wife is now on some weird mailing list that sent her a catalog full of vintage Soviet and Tsarist Russian paraphernalia. Unless somebody else is checking our locked apartment mailbox.
The Feds will have to be happy checking our book purchases, reading our email, and checking our library records. Oh, yeah, there's always this website for them to check out. I'm on the record as being against all of the above. I have no desire to live in a Stalinist or neo-Stalinist state. I would much rather be free and deal with terrorism than worry about whether my neighbor approves of my politics or my friends.
Think I'm exaggerating about the issue here? How about this: most reports are saying that the goal for the Bush Administration is to get at least four percent of Americans involved in the domestic spying program. That's more nitches than the East German Stasi used. That's right, when the U.S. cracks down on civil liberties, we don't do it by half (unless we're talking gun ownership).
The situation is bad enough (between TIPS and holding prisoners incommuncado) that former CIA and FBI head William Webster is concerned. So is former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who was in Argentina to see protests about the disappeared. The Bush Administration's Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, who claims that his experiences as a child in South Vietnam mean he want's to safeguard our rights, seems to have forgotten one of the most basic: habeas corpus. How are we supposed to verify that your rights haven't violated, if no one knows you've been detained. Keep in mind that there are at least three US citizens (Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh and Yaser Esam Hambi) that are in custody, and who the government has not intention of charging, or allowing access to legal counsel. Yeah, they've been given Mr. Dinh's "full panoply of rights". Ok, so Lindh and Hambi were captured in a war zoen and brought back, and Lindh plead guilty to some charges, but it still appears that his confession was coerced.
And that leaves out the six hundred our so who were detained by the INS, and who have received closed hearings. The courst are still out on whether this is legal or not, but reports have abounded of people held for months without lawyers and without being able to contect loved ones (like wives and children) to tell them why they aren't coming home for dinner.
I keep waiting for the outcry on these issues, but it hasn't appeared. Why? Because the Bush Administration has been allowed to frame the debate, and the media, along with a compliant Congress, have not pursued the issue. No one seems to care that there is no debate, that we are suddenly not as free as we were. It is possible that the people don't know. After all, who reads the paper? These issues haven't appeard on nightly newscasts here in Colorado, which implies that they haven't appeared elsewhere, either.
This is in the best interest of our political and corporate masters. It makes us easier to control our thoughts and our bodies. The corporations control the media and the government both. They ought to, they paid enough through acquisitions and campaign contributions, so we hear what they want, and they are ready when we complain: they can read our email, our websites, our chatrooms, our financial and library records with impunity. They can search our homes without warning or notification. If we organize political protests, our causes are distorted, our presence hidden. If we attempt reasoned debate, we are caled unpatriotic. If we appear dangerous, we are arrested and accused of being terrorists, but no charges are brought.
Welcome to the new America.