by Michael Chesbro
Year after year the government has proposed and implemented more and more oppressive regulations that tear at the very heart of this great republic. These regulations trample the Constitution under a jack-booted foot and toll the death of freedom and the rightful liberties of We the People!
We need only look back a generation or two to see the beginning of this government surveillance program with the issuing of Social Security numbers (SSNs) to everyone of working age. Opponents of this governmentally assigned “national ID number” were assured that their fears were unfounded. The SSN, we were told, will only be used to administer the Social Security program. Your SSN is nothing more than an account number to keep track of funds contributed to your Social Security account. Originally Social Security cards were even annotated with the words “Not For Identification.” However, as We the People began to accept this new “national identification number,” things began to change. The words “Not For Identification” quietly disappeared from our Social Security cards, and the SSN was adopted by the IRS as our taxpayer identification number.
The implementation of a national identification number was now firmly in place. Other agencies and organizations began to adopt the SSN for identification purposes. Requests for your SSN began to appear on forms throughout the government and in the private sector. The SSN, which heretofore was not needed until you began to work and earn a taxable income, was now a necessity for even the youngest children. In fact the IRS declared that parents could not claim a tax exemption for their children unless said children had SSNs and those numbers were listed on the parents' tax return forms!
Yes, you read that correctly. In order to travel on the public highways, relax along the bank of a babbling brook, or even fall in love and get married you need Big Brother's national ID number (your SSN)! The federal government finally has a national ID number, issued to everyone at birth and following them to the grave. George Orwell's 1984 had arrived in the year 2000.
Although the national ID number (an abomination to a free people) is the key that ties it all together, Big Brother has not been idle in other areas. The advent of affordable computer technology and the adoption of this technology by government agencies and private businesses created a number of databases containing private and personal information about us. With the ever-increasing and mandated use of the SSN as a national ID number these databases are now cross-referenced and capable of providing a most detailed dossier on your private life!
The federal government has developed the most comprehensive system of tracking and electronic surveillance of We the People ever to exist. The intrusive capability of this surveillance system is far greater than anything ever dreamed up by Nazi Germany's Gestapo or the Soviet Union's KGB.
The creation and cross-referencing of governmental and private sector databases, all of which are being tied together using our national identification numbers (our SSNs) allows Big Brother to cast a wide net of electronic surveillance.
The Bank Secrecy Act (31 USC Section 1051 et. seq.) requires that your bank keep records of your banking transactions that “have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, and regulatory investigations and proceedings.” This of course raises the question as to just what these types of transactions might be. Well, to begin with, it is any and all transactions or combination of transactions involving $10,000 or more. It is also any transaction or combination of transactions totaling $5,000 or more which “is not the sort in which a particular customer would normally be expected to engage.” And, it's any transaction where you take steps to keep your transactions below these stated limits. This is a crime that Big Brother calls structuring – kind of like getting a speeding ticket for driving 47 miles per hour in a 50-mile-per-hour zone.
Much of this monitoring of our banking transactions is accomplished by a computer program called “America's Software.” According to Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), in statements made before Congress on October 19, 2000, regarding threats to financial freedom: “The constant surveillance is accomplished, as is most privacy invasion these days, by a special banking computer software program called 'America's Software' which allows every transaction in any account to be watched constantly. It produces a daily record for bank officials, who now have certain obligations imposed by U.S. law that require the reporting of 'suspicious activities' to federal agents.”
These reports of suspicious activity are submitted to FINCEN, the “Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.” FINCEN is a network of computer databases and more than 140 million financial records maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department. FINCEN shares these databases with every office of the U.S. Attorney, the FBI, BATF, DEA, Secret Service, U.S. Customs and more than 50 other departments and agencies. All of these agencies can use FINCEN databases to investigate persons of interest, and conduct fishing expeditions among the various "suspicious activity” reports submitted by financial institutions.
According to FINCEN's own reports the number of "suspicious activity” reports submitted by financial institutions about their customers is steadily increasing, and more than doubled between 1996 and 2000. The following chart shows the number of suspicious activity reports received by FINCEN for each year 1996 – 2000.
| 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 (first half of the year) |
| 49,786 | 81,597 | 96,932 | 120,506 | 100,353 |
This ever-increasing intrusion of Big Brother into our financial activities tramples our 4th Amendment rights into the dirt, but worse is yet to come.
To this end the F.B.I. came up with a system called “Carnivore” to track and monitor our online activity and to record our private communications to friends, family and business associates.
Carnivore (now upgraded and renamed “DCS1000”) is a black box that the F.B.I. connects into the network of an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Thereafter they (the F.B.I.) monitor traffic across the network from some remote location without further involvement from the ISP.
Unlike traditional telephone taps which require a warrant and are installed with the assistance of the telephone company (thus providing some oversight as to who is being monitored) once Carnivore/DCS1000 is in place Big Brother can monitor anyone or everyone on the network. Because there is no continued involvement by ISP personnel there is no one to say, “Hey, you're not supposed to be doing that!”
According to information obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) through the Freedom of Information Act, Carnivore/DCS1000 can monitor every e-mail sent over a network, and every site visited from that network. To be fair, however, we should ask: Just because the system is capable of monitoring every e-mail sent across a network, does that mean that the F.B.I. is actually ignoring the 4th Amendment and monitoring the e-mail of persons other than the listed targets of an investigation? Unfortunately that's exactly what they seem to be doing. According to Associated Press (AP) reports in May and June 2002 concerning the Carnivore/DCS1000 system installed on various ISPs: “The F.B.I. software not only picked up the e-mails of its target but also picked up e-mails on non-covered targets.” Simply put, Big Brother is, without a warrant, and with a complete disregard for the 4th Amendment, copying and reading your private, personal e-mail as it travels across the monitored network of your ISP.
There has been significant public protest over Carnivore/DCS1000. The protest has ranged from advocates of personal privacy, such as myself, to national organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to the halls of Congress. These protests center on the F.B.I.'s failure to fully disclose the capabilities of Carnivore/DCS1000 (secret surveillance against the American people) and the potential, actual and continued misuse and unlawful electronic monitoring of the private communications of We the People.
However, Carnivore/DCS1000 wasn't enough for Big Brother. Carnivore/DCS1000 can only capture what you send across the Internet (i.e., e-mail and web-sites), but Big Brother wants to know what you are writing off-line and storing on your personal computer at home. To this end the F.B.I. came up with project Magic Lantern.
Magic Lantern is a computer virus (well… actually a Trojan horse) that Big Brother uses to infect your computer. Once in place Magic Lantern records your keystrokes as you type on your computer keyboard. It captures whatever you type, including private letters, passwords, account numbers, etc., and when you next go online it secretly sends this file off to Big Brother.
Now you may think that your anti-virus software would catch this type of trick – after all that's what it's designed to do. Unfortunately, the anti-virus companies have been co-opted by the government to weaken their anti-virus software so that it will not detect Magic Lantern. According to a November 23, 2001 Washington Post article: At least one company that makes anti-virus software, McAfee Corp., contacted the F.B.I. to ensure its software wouldn't detect the Bureau's snooping software.
But Big Brother isn't through yet. There is also project Digital Storm. Digital Storm will bring the F.B.I.'s electronic surveillance capability (i.e., wiretaps, Carnivore/DCS1000, Magic Lantern, et. al.) along with access to commercial records (credit reports, driver's records, real estate records, etc.) into one giant system for the covert surveillance of We the People!
Even the F.B.I. admits that Digital Storm will result in a 300% increase in electronic surveillance over the next 10 years as the system is fully developed and put into place. If Big Brother is admitting to a 300% increase of covert electronic surveillance of the American people we can reasonably assume that the real number is much greater than 300%!
When Thomas Jefferson scribed the words of the Declaration of Independence he clearly set forth the principles of the powers of government for this great republic, stating: “…governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” When it comes to Carnivore/DCS1000, Magic Lantern, Digital Storm and other secret monitoring of the private communications of the American people, Big Brother is clearly acting without the consent of the governed!
This Patriot Act was a dream for Big Brother and a nightmare for free people. It massively expanded the surveillance and covert activity potential of government agents against the American people. It removes judicial discretion in the issuance of warrants for electronic monitoring. Big Brother does not even need probable cause to obtain a warrant anymore. A warrant must now be issued if the government will merely certify that “information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
In reviewing the Patriot Act, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org), an organization focusing on personal privacy and individual rights, stated: “The civil liberties of ordinary Americans have taken a tremendous blow with this law, especially the right to privacy in our online communications and activities. Yet there is no evidence that our previous civil liberties posed a barrier to the effective tracking or prosecution of terrorists. In fact, in asking for these broad new powers, the government made no showing that the previous powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to spy on U.S. citizens were insufficient to allow them to investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism.”
Gregory T. Nojeim, Associate Director of the ACLU's Washington Office, stated: “These new and unchecked powers could be used against American citizens who are not under criminal investigation, immigrants who are here within our borders legally and also against those whose First Amendment activities are deemed to be threats to national security by the Attorney General.”
However, it's not just organizations focusing on personal privacy and civil liberties that find the Patriot Act to be a threat. According to a July 1, 2002, ABC News report, several cities across the nation are passing resolutions that state that the Patriot Act is a threat to the rights and freedoms of the American People. These cities include Cambridge and Amherst, MA, Ann Arbor, MI, Denver, CO, Berkeley, CA, and others. As an example of the wording of these resolutions, the Cambridge, MA resolution states in part: “We believe these civil liberties [freedom of speech, assembly and privacy; equality before the law; due process; and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures] are now threatened by the USA Patriot Act.”
The creeping pestilence of government surveillance against the American people has finally become a virulent plague.
Contact your elected officials and demand that they take action to stop the covert surveillance of the American people by Big Brother run amok. Some will say that it does little good to write and call government bureaucrats, and this may be true, but if you don't protest the shredding of the Constitution you are in no position to complain when your rights are taken away. Furthermore, when enough of us voice our concerns and demand that our public servants uphold their oaths to support and defend the Constitution some of them just might listen, especially during an election year. It's also important to remember that there are good men in government. By bringing matters to the attention of these men it is often possible to get them to take action.
Make a habit of not disclosing your SSN. Your SSN has become a “national ID number” and is the key that ties Big Brother's databases together. Just because some form has a space for your SSN doesn't mean that you have to provide it. If dealing with the government, require that they provide their specific authority for collecting your SSN and that they disclose to you how that information will be used. Make them provide you with Privacy Act disclosure information every time you disclose your SSN.
Deal in cash whenever possible. In those cases where cash is not an option (such as sending larger amounts of money through the mail) use less traceable instruments such as postal money orders. Remember that financial institutions are required to spy on their customers, reporting your actions to Big Brother. Every time you conduct a financial transaction you add another line to your financial profile, unless you conduct those transactions in cash!
Encrypt. Encrypt. Encrypt. Use high-level encryption programs (such as PGP available for free at: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html) to secure your online communications. Encrypted e-mail should be the standard rather than the exception. If your e-mail is encrypted it makes little difference if it is captured by Carnivore/DCS1000 or some other online surveillance system. Big Brother can't read it if it's encrypted! Use other e-security techniques such as anonymous remailers (http://anon.efga.org/Remailers), and proxy servers such as Anonymizer (http://www.anonymizer.com/). These security techniques are discussed in detail in my books The Complete Guide to E-Security and Freeware Encryption and Security Programs.
We must never surrender our essential liberties in the name of temporary safety. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
We must stand ever vigilant to safeguard our rightful liberty and freedoms, even when this means safeguarding against the encroachment of Big Brother and over-zealous government agencies run amok. The rights and freedoms we surrender today will be lost forever.
