One morning, in his Supreme Court chambers, Justice William Brennan was giving me a lesson on the American Revolution. "A main precipitating cause of our revolution," he said, "was the general search warrant that British customs officers wrote—without going to any court—to break into the American colonists' homes and offices, looking for contraband." Everything, including the colonists, was turned upside down.

He added that news of these recurrent assaults on privacy were spread through the colonies by the Committees of Correspondence that Sam Adams and others organized, inflaming the outraged Americans.

Now, the Congressional Democratic leadership has finally found an issue to focus on—the vanishing of Americans' privacy, as happened before the American Revolution, but currently on a scale undreamed of by Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other patriots in the Committees of Correspondence.

The rising present anger around the country, across party lines, is reflected in a February 3 Zogby Interactive poll that "finds Americans largely unwilling to surrender civil liberties—even if it is to prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks. . . . Even routine security measures, like random searches of bags, purses, and other packages, were opposed by half (50 percent) of respondents in the survey. . . . Just 28 percent are willing to allow their telephone conversations to be monitored."

On the other hand, nearly half (45 percent) favored at least "a great deal" of government secrecy in the war on terror. But the public's awareness that the United States has increasingly become a nation under surveillance is indicated by resistance not only to random searches and tapping into our telephone conversations. Zogby says: This is a "public obsessed with civil liberties."

Well, not obsessed yet, but growingly apprehensive.

In 2001, for example, 82 percent of those surveyed by Zogby favored government video surveillance of street corners, neighborhoods, and other public places. By 2006, this approval has dropped to 70 percent, still a formidable figure. But the decline is part of an across-the-board change in public willingness to give up civil liberties from 2001 to the present awakening to the vanishing of the "reasonable expectation of privacy" that used to be in our rule of law.

James Madison, the principal architect of the Bill of Rights, warned: "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment in our liberties." Because of the continually expanding surveillance technology available to the government, no administration in our history has been engaged in more pervasive "experiments" on our liberties than Bush's regime. And even more penetrating means of surveillance will be available to future presidents who claim that their "inherent powers" in a war on terrorism allow them to ignore laws and the other branches of government. The present and future dangers to Americans' individual liberties have been underscored in a revealing speech by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on February 2 at the National Press Club in Washington. (The ramifications of this analysis of our future are deeper than he may have intended.)

Rumsfeld said flatly that this war to keep us secure from worldwide, dedicated lethal terrorists can last for decades! At last, this crucial difference from all the other wars in which we have been involved is sinking into the American consciousness.

In their February 3 Washington Post coverage of the Rumsfeld address, Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson valuably added this context: "Iraq and Afghanistan are the 'early battles' in the campaign against Islamic extremists and terrorists, who are profoundly more dangerous than in the past because of technological advances that allow them to operate globally, said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon K. England in an address on Wednesday [February 1]."

At the core of Rumsfeld's own remarks is this admission: "Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs." (Emphasis added.)

But our enemies are changing our way of life, beginning with the 2001 Patriot Act that, among other invasions, expanded the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters—without going to judges—to collect personal information about us. This marked the return of the "general search warrant" of our colonial past.

Because the New York Times exposed how the National Security Agency's spying is further changing our way of life, the administration is intent on punishing the Times—with the support of Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In an afterword to George Orwell's 1984, Eric Fromm emphasized: "Orwell . . . is not a prophet of disaster. He wants to warn and awaken us. He still hopes— but . . . his hope is a desperate one. . . . Books like Orwell's are powerful warnings, and it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted 1984 as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too."

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, in an interview with the New York Times' Bob Herbert, tells how Orwell is indeed speaking to us: "The more people grow accustomed to a listening environment in which Big Brother is assumed to be behind every wall, behind every e-mail, and invisibly present in every electronic communication, telephonic or otherwise—that is the kind of society, as people grow accustomed to it, in which you can end up being boiled to death without ever noticing that the water is getting hotter, degree by degree." (Emphasis added.)

Will the Democrats become a truly serious opposition party before privacy disappears entirely?

From spyware on your computer to police cameras on your street to GPS devices on your cell phone, how much of your private life is really private any more?

"It's all part of the general evaporation of privacy," said Peter Wayner, a Baltimore-based computer programmer who has written several books about online protocol and safety.

The Justice Department has obtained records of millions of anonymous, random searches made on Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online as it attempts to revive a child pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Google, the world's most popular search engine, refused to comply, and the Justice Department has gone to court to force the company to turn over the data.

"I think the Justice Department isn't looking for personal information. They seem to want to do some research," Wayner said. "But the future may be different."

The issue has sparked privacy debates around the country - and opened the eyes of those who didn't know such records were being kept in the first place. In fact, most people leave a digital trail of personal information behind as they go about their daily life, using an ATM or a grocery savings club card or logging on to their e-mail accounts.

While most of this personal information cannot be released without a subpoena, you might be surprised at how easy it is to track where you've been and what you've done on a typical day. Consider this scenario:

Wake up, shower and dress, then before you go to work, log onto the Internet to check e-mails or a Web site.

No matter how you log onto the Web, all of your Internet activity can be traced because of your computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address, a random number that enables computers on a network to communicate.

"The IP address is like the phone number of a computer," said Wayner. "The companies usually keep the user's physical address bound to each IP address."

IP address information travels along the network of your Internet Service Provider (ISP), which acts as a conduit between your computer and the Web. Information stored by ISPs can be kept indefinitely.

"If you use a search engine for information about a bomb, your local computer has a record [of your search]," said Tim Finin, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "Your ISP knows you're the guy who is at the address of that computer," he added, "and that you accessed the file."

Head for work, taking Interstate 95 and going through an E-Z Pass toll lane.

E-Z Pass knows you were there: Its transactions are like credit card purchases. The transponder that was placed on your windshield is read by a sensor as you pass through. Then the sensor calls up your account then verifies that it's in good standing.

"If for some reason it's not read correctly," said Teri Moss, spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority, "or if you go through an E-Z Pass lane [without a pass], a video image is taken of your license plate."

E-Z Pass would then contact the MTA, which would send you a letter requesting payment.

Just prior to approaching your office, your cell phone rings.

Some cell phones have Global Positioning System chips, enabling you to be tracked if, for example, you call 911 during an emergency.

Yet GPS devices can also alert your mobile carrier of your whereabouts throughout the day.

"If you have your phone turned on, your location is known to the phone company," said Finin. "Your cell phone is constantly communicating with the closest cell tower. Even when you're not using it, it's constantly pinging the nearest tower to say, 'I'm here. This is my number.'"

Arrive at work, swipe an access card to open the locked employees' entrance. Head to your cubicle.

Were your movements tracked from the moment you entered the building? Yes and no.

Andre Mendes, software engineer at Entry Master Systems, a Baltimore-based commercial security and access control company, said most access cards contain a coded, arbitrarily assigned number, but no personal information. Your employer, though, can match the random numbers to specific employees.

But are there surveillance cameras, perhaps inside the dark glass half bubbles you see on some ceilings, once you're inside? Department stores, government buildings, libraries and hospitals are some of the facilities that use such devices.

Officials at Diebold, an Ohio-based systems company, say some images can be stored for three months, and top-of-the-line cameras can zoom in on the minutest objects.

Said Vince Lupe, Diebold director of product management: "If you look at CSI, they zoom in on this guy's face and say, 'Let's see the mole on his left cheek.'"

Lunchtime: Order a salad with light dressing, in line with the diet your wife wants you on. The waiter brings a dessert tray with your favorite indulgence - Key lime pie. You say you shouldn't, then tell him you'll take a slice - no, two. Charge the meal to your credit card. You look around to see that no one's watching.

Yet someone is watching. Among the folks who know about your purchase: the restaurant, your credit card company, the bank that handles the restaurant's credit card account and the bank that issued your card.

Your secret is probably safe, though - unless your wife finds a good, old-fashioned paper copy of the itemized receipt in your coat pocket.

Driving back to the office takes you along city streets with several cameras attached to light posts. Stop for gas at your usual station.

It's possible that Kristen Mahoney, Baltimore City Police Department chief of technical services, is watching from monitors at headquarters, as she did recently when a rumor that some downtown gas stations were closing early prompted a mad dash to the pumps.

Mahoney dispatched nearby officers to the overcrowded stations before tempers flared.

In fact, on many of Baltimore's busiest streets, police are watching: They've set up more than 220 surveillance cameras, mainly in crime hot spots and along downtown infrastructures.

They include:

# Pod cameras with flashing blue lights that are placed in areas known for violence and drug dealing. They're watched by nearby law enforcement officers in their cars, via small, monitoring devices called footballs.

# City Watch cameras that monitor light rail, trauma centers and downtown universities. Funded by a $2 million homeland security grant, they pan, tilt, zoom and record high-quality digital images.

# Downtown Partnership cameras, which the non-profit organization has set up near businesses.

# Port of Baltimore cameras, for port security.

Smile if you find yourself on Pratt Street at the Inner Harbor: It's monitored, Mahoney said, by the last three kinds of cameras.

After leaving work, run some errands on the way home. At the department store, pick up a new dress for your wife, who is four months pregnant and starting not to fit into her old clothes, and charge it to your store credit card. Stop at the grocery store for something to make for dinner, using your frequent shopper card for discounted prices. On your way out, hit the ATM for some cash.

In the coming days, you might receive a $50 gift certificate toward baby furniture from the department store, and coupons from the grocery store.

"If you go into a department store and buy a maternity dress, a red light goes on in the store," said Raymond Burke, a professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, which has worked with retailers to analyze customer loyalty. "They know you're expecting a child and you're likely to spend upward of $5,000 on products. If they're able to analyze those purchases and tie them into the life stages of a consumer, that can be a powerful tool for promotional activity."

Burke said stores also monitor which complementary items you buy (shampoo and conditioner, hot dogs and buns) for product placement in the aisles. And they keep track of how costly it is to do business with you - how often you return purchases, for example, and in what condition.

ATMs not only record the time and amount of your transaction, but take surveillance camera images. If there happens to be a crime in the vicinity around the time you were making a withdrawal, don't be surprised if the police contact you to ask if you saw anything unusual.

Your day ends. Fall asleep with little worry about how you've been "followed" throughout the day.

Surveys have shown that most people aren't losing sleep over this issue: They don't mind forfeiting some privacy it they can see the benefits, Burke says.

Fears of terrorism and crime, for example, can make citizens accept some forms of surveillance in exchange for feeling more secure. Getting discounts, speeding through an E-Z Pass lane rather than waiting in line at the cash-only toll booth and quickly finding what you need on Google are benefits that many would be loathe to give up.

While the Justice Department controversy has raised eyebrows and prompted some search engine users to worry where their queries will end up, some experts predict people won't change their habits.

"You hear people talk about it," said UMBC's Finan, "and when push comes to shove, convenience trumps any fear about privacy."

Roberts said he could not remember Democrats raising questions about the program during briefings that, beginning in 2002, were given to the "Gang of Eight." That group was made up of the House speaker and minority leader, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the chairmen and ranking Democrats of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

At the briefings, Roberts said, "Those that did the briefing would say, 'Do you have questions? Do you have concerns?' " Hoekstra said if Democrats thought Bush was violating the law, "it was their responsibility to use every tool possible to get the president to stop it."

Harman countered that John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, had voiced his concerns to Vice President Cheney in a classified letter in July 2003, but "if he had shared that letter publicly, I think he would have been in violation of the Espionage Act, the disclosure of classified information."

Harman said the briefings she received concerned "the operational details of the program," which she supported. "However," she added, "the briefings were not about the legal underpinnings of the program."

She said it was not until Bush publicly spoke about the program, after it was revealed in the New York Times in December, that she was free to discuss it with House staff and constitutional lawyers.

Daschle said he wants the program to continue but maintained that the warrantless wiretapping of calls that came into the United States or calls made overseas, even those involving suspected terrorist sources, violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

He recalled that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks Bush asked Congress to revise FISA -- to initiate wiretaps and get warrants after 72 hours -- to make it easier to use against terrorists. Those changes were made. But in the authorization to fight al Qaeda, Bush was denied language that would have covered activities on U.S. soil.

Harman noted that the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed last week on domestic wiretapping. "We're only 36 members total that we're talking about, and those members should decide whether this program fits within the law, and if it does, which I think it does, we should all declare victory. If it does not, then we should be changing the law or changing the program."

The three current intelligence committee members talked about the article in Foreign Affairs by Paul R. Pillar, the former senior CIA intelligence analyst on Iraq. He criticized the Bush administration for "cherry-picking" intelligence to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, while ignoring assessments that problems would emerge after Saddam Hussein was removed.

Roberts said Pillar did not give his committee that kind of assessment. Hoekstra questioned why Pillar was speaking out now.

Harman said: "He was trying to get everyone's attention. Intelligence was ignored. Yes, everyone agreed there was WMD in Iraq, but the weight of the [intelligence community's] recommendation was Saddam was contained and he wasn't going to use it. And that's the part that the administration never let us hear about."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Rove's chief adviser on Iran policy is Neoconservative wildman and notorious warmonger Michael Ledeen, who has a longstanding connection to the darker corners of Italian intelligence.

Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney heard of the alleged uranium purchase. Cheney asked George Tenet to look into the allegation.

The issue went to the Directorate of Operations secret unit on counter-proliferation. Among the field officers there was Valerie Plame Wilson, who had spent her life fighting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction under cover of a dummy corporation.

Valerie Plame Wilson was married to former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, who had served bravely as acting ambassador in Iraq in 1990, and when threatened by Saddam he showed up to a press conference wearing a hanging noose instead of a necktie. President George H. W. Bush highly praised him.

Joe Wilson had not only served in Iraq, he also had been ambassador to the West African countries of Gabon and Sao Tome, and spoke fluent French. When Plame Wilson's superiors brought up the possibility of sending him as a private citizen to look into the plausibility of the report that Saddam had bought Nigerien uranium, she was consulted and agreed (she was not part of the decision loop).

He went, and soon saw that the uranium industry in Niger was actually under the control of French companies and was strictly monitored.


There was no possibility of corrupt Nigerien officials selling it off under the table.

A separate military mission led by Marine General Carlton Fulford, Jr, deputy commander of the United States European Command (EUCOM), went to Niger the same month, February 2002.

Fulford quickly came to the same conclusion as Wilson, that it was implausible that al-Qaeda or anyone else could secretly buy uranium from Niger.

Wilson came back and was orally debriefed by people who wrote a report for Tenet, expecting that Tenet would pass it on to the high officials of the Bush administration.

Wilson was amazed when the Niger uranium story was put into Bush's State of the Union address.

Then Libby wanted Secretary of State Colin Powell to make allegations about Saddam and al-Qaeda before the United Nations Security Council. Powell was also pressed by someone to bring up the Niger uranium story.

Powell is said to have exclaimed, "I'm not reading this bullshit!"

Libby appears to have been a big influence on the speech Powell gave, almost every detail of which was inaccurate, and at which United Nations officials who heard it openly laughed.

After the war, Wilson wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he revealed his mission and again called into question the Bush administration assertion that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program.

Cheney was extremely upset by Wilson's op-ed. He saw it as an allegation that he had personally sent Wilson and then ignored Wilson's report. Or at least that was the spin. But Wilson had said no such thing in the article. He simply said that Cheney had asked Tenet to look into the story, which Cheney probably did.

Cheney was afraid that if the American public became convinced that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the war effort would collapse, along with all those billions of no-bid uncompetitive contracts for Halliburton.

Cheney, it has now come out, then authorized Libby to leak the classified 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to the press.

The NIE, which may have been produced under pressure from Cheney himself, had incorrectly suggested that Iraq was only a few years from having a nuclear weapon. In fact, Iraq did not have an active weapons program at all after the early 1990s when it was dismantled by the UN inspectors. The pre-war NIE in any case was just old bad intelligence, which was contradicted by David Kay's team on the ground in post-war Iraq, which just wasn't finding much.

Libby now began telling reporters that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative, itself classified information, since she was an undercover operative.

Karl Rove engaged in the same routine. Apparently Cheney, Rove and Libby (and Bush?) believed that Wilson's credibility would be undermined if the Washington press corps could have it intimated to them that his story was a CIA plant.

Robert Novak used the information given him by the White House staff to out Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover operative. Her career was ruined. All her contacts in the global South were burned, and their lives put in danger. The CIA's careful project combating weapons of mass destruction collapsed.

The same administration that alleges it should be able to listen to our phone calls at will for national security purposes deliberately undermined US security for petty political purposes, making us all much less safe.

The likelihood is that the crimes of Bush, Cheney, Libby and Rove so far revealed are only the tip of the iceberg.

The Defense Dept. places a high-value on controlling information. The new program illustrates their determination to establish the parameters of free speech.

The Pentagon sees information as essential in manipulating public perceptions and, thus, a crucial tool in eliciting support for unpopular policies. The recent revelations of the military placing propaganda in the foreign press demonstrate the importance that is given to co-opting public opinion.

Information-warfare is used to create an impenetrable cloud around the activities of government so that decisions can be made without dissent. The smokescreen of deception that encompasses the Bush administration has less to do with prevaricating politicians than it does with a clearly articulated policy of obfuscation. “The Information Operations Roadmap” is solely intended to undermine the principle of an informed citizenry.

The Pentagon’s focus on the internet tells us a great deal about the mainstream media and its connection to the political establishment.

Why, for example, would the Pentagon see the internet as a greater threat than the mainstream media, where an estimated 75% of Americans get their news?

The reason is clear; because the MSM is already a fully-integrated part of the corporate-system providing a 24 hour per day streaming of business-friendly news. Today’s MSM operates as a de-facto franchise of the Pentagon, a reliable and sophisticated propagandist for Washington’s wars of aggression and political subterfuge.

The internet, on the other hand, is the last bastion of American democracy; a virtual world where reliable information moves instantly from person to person without passing through the corporate filter. Online visitors can get a clear picture of their governments’ depredations with a click of the mouse. This is the liberalization of the news, an open source of mind-expanding information that elevates citizen awareness of complex issues and threatens the status quo.

The Pentagon program is just one facet of a broader culture of deception; a pervasive ethos of dishonesty that envelopes all aspects of the Bush White House. The “Strategic Intelligence” Dept is a division of the Defense establishment that is entirely devoted to concealing, distorting, omitting and manipulating the truth.

In what way is “strategic intelligence” different from plain intelligence?

It is information that is shaped in a way that meets the needs of a particular group. In other words, it is not the truth at all, but a fabrication, a fiction, a lie.

Strategic intelligence is an oxymoron; a tidy bit of Orwellian doublespeak that reflects the deeply rooted cynicism of its authors.

The internet is a logical target for the Pentagon’s electronic warfare. Already the Downing Street memos, Bush’s bombing-threats against Al Jazeera, the fraudulent 2004 elections, and the leveling of Falluja, have disrupted the smooth execution of Bush’s wars. It is understandable that Rumsfeld and Co. would seek to transform this potential enemy into an ally, much as it has done with the MSM.

The Pentagon’s plans for engaging in “virtual warfare” are impressive. As BBC notes: “The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.” (BBC)

The enemy, of course, is you, dear reader, or anyone who refuses to accept their role as a witless-cog in new world order. Seizing the internet is a prudent way of controlling every piece of information that one experiences from cradle to grave; all necessary for an orderly police-state.

The Information Operations Roadmap (IOR) recommends that psychological operations (Psyops) “should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet.” No idea is too costly or too far-fetched that it escapes the serious consideration of the Pentagon chieftains.

The War Dept. is planning to insert itself into every area of the internet from blogs to chat rooms, from leftist web sites to editorial commentary. The objective is to challenge any tidbit of information that appears on the web that may counter the official narrative; the fairytale of benign American intervention to promote democracy and human rights across the planet.

The IOR aspires to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" and develop the capability to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". (BBC)

Full spectrum dominance.

The ultimate goal of the Pentagon is to create an internet-paradigm that corresponds to the corporate mainstream model, devoid of imagination or divergent points of view. They envision an internet that is increasingly restricted by the gluttonous influence of industry and its vast “tapestry of lies”.

The internet is the modern-day marketplace of ideas, an invaluable resource for human curiosity and organized resistance. It provides a direct link between the explosive power of ideas and engaged citizen involvement. (aka; participatory democracy)

The Pentagon is laying the groundwork for privatizing the internet so the information-revolution can be transformed into an information-tyranny, extending to all areas of communications and serving the exclusive interests of a few well-heeled American plutocrats.