It's instructive to look at the history of America's original surveillance program, its 223 year old US Census program.
There are rigorous laws against government abuse of census data[1][2] going back over 200 years. In addition, during each 10-year census period there are earnest advertising campaigns of shameless dis-information assuring American citizens that their census data will remain absolutely confidential and out of reach of all other US Government agencies[3] (worth looking specifically at the 2000 ad campaign image referenced here). Actual history is quite different. At least three times in US history, US Census data has been abused on a massive scale for direct military or police action against US citizens. Each time it was justified by pointing to extraordinary events that "demanded" its use. In 1864, after General Sherman took Atlanta and destroyed the city of Atlanta, he ordered US Census records for the states he intended to campaign through on his famed "March to the Sea" to sent by train to his headquarters outside Atlanta. His operational planners sifted through the census records to determine where the richest farms and largest storehouses were located to plan the routing of their Savannah Campaign[4]. Eighty years later in 1942, US Census records were used to identify the residential addresses of all Americans that had declared Japanese (as well as German and Italian) ancestory on their 1940 Census forms. The information was used by FBI and local law enforcement for the round up and placement of over 140,000 people into detention camps of which over 120,000 were US citizens[5][6]. And sixty years later in 2002 came the most recent abuse of US Census data when the Census Bureau handed over information that had been collected about Arab-Americans during the 2000 Census to the FBI and Homeland Security[7]. ----------- What is clear is that as long as the capabilities to amass data exists, there will be repeated abuses of that data. Furthermore, that abuse will almost always be in the form of repressive military and police actions against that nation's own citizens without regard to laws, constitutions or "intentions"[8]. We have far more to fear than the terrorists... ----------- [1] http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/title_13_-_protection_of_confidential_information.html [2] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/03/justice_dept_census_confidenti.html [3] http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_214/2141255/file/census-2000-hispanic-campaign-no-small-75969.jpg [4] http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/shermans-march-sea [5] JR Minkel (March 30, 2007). Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II. Scientific American [6] Haya El Nasser (March 30, 2007). "Papers show Census role in WWII camps". USA Today [7] http://epic.org/privacy/census/foia/ [8] http://www.toad.com/gnu/census.html
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