Peek-A-Boo Soviet Style
By Ann Huggett (09/25/03)
Freedom and the right to privacy as guaranteed in the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment are under constant attack in this computer driven, micromanaged age so perhaps there's no kind way to sugar coat such questions on Homeland Security as to why are intrusive programs being developed to spy on all Americans when our borders are still leaking like sieves? And why are we hiring former Soviet KGB agents as consultants on these programs?
The Fourth Amendment clearly states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Bearing that in mind, the Information Awareness Office (IAO), which was a pentagon based, data-mining computer program aimed at super snooping on American citizens, was rightly killed by a joint House and Senate conference committee last week among bipartisan fears about privacy. The program, run by retired Navy Vice Admiral John Poindexter, was designed to scan medical data, credit card activity, and travel history while searching for possible terrorist activity.
According to Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, "The outcome is we are not going to have Americans picked up by their ankles and turned upside down then shaken to see if anything funny falls out. We won't see Americans on American soil being targeted under the biggest surveillance program in the history of the U.S."
However, the National Foreign Intelligence Program for overseas operations can still use the system developed by the IAO, called the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which administered the IAO, was left in place to pursue further research projects and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) would like to conduct background checks on all national airline passengers through it's controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II).
What is the most troubling is that Poindexter had hired two former heads of the Soviet KGB as consultants for the IAO. As acknowledged by Fox News commentator, Former KGB counter-intelligence chief, General Oleg Kalugin, General Yevgeny Primakov and General Aleksandr V. Karpos were major players in the IAO. This is especially ironic since Primakov, who is considered the main architect of Soviet Middle Eastern terrorism, was also a former Soviet Prime Minister and has personal ties through friendship to Saddam Hussein.
Tracking the whereabouts of Primakov and Karpos was difficult but following their funding provides evidence of close coordination between the Departments of Transportation, Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the TSA. Aware that the credit information gathered by CAPPS II, new drivers license features, and the passage of the National Identity Card Act will comprise a massive invasion of privacy for the average American, Primakov sees internal passports as the ultimate aim of all these programs.
According to the May 15, 2003 Howard Phillips Issues and Strategies Bulletin "General Primakov, who spearheaded arrangements for the implementation of the GRU's global terrorism 'work' using ignorant and brainwashed Islamic radicals, was voluble when asked what all this was supposed to be about. The establishment of the State Security Citizen Threat File was just one of many steps being prepared by the US Government to tighten security in view of the terrorism threat – of which he failed to remind his interviewer that he was one of the chief architects. He volunteered that when the National Identity Card Act (NICA) is passed, the Posse Comitatus Act is overturned, and other items of repressive legislation are approved by Congress, the White House will have acquired greater control over the American people than the Kremlin could exert over the Russian people when Stalin was alive."
With what now seems the open and deliberate failure of the US government to control our borders or enforce immigration laws, i.e. (1. the politically correct refusal to target the specific demographic from which most terrorists spring thereby making wheelchair- bound grannies the object of intrusive airport searches while Islamic males are waved through inspections, 2. the states and communities harboring illegals and giving them drivers licenses, and 3. illegals themselves openly defying US immigration law) the situation is ripe for a massive clampdown on the mobility and freedom of the American people all in the name of "fighting terrorism".
Congress and the Senate are to be commended for stopping Poindexter¹s Information Awareness Office but that is only the cosmetic tip of a very ugly Hegelian dialectic iceberg, which just might include an overturning of the Posse Comitatus Act soon.
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