Every Single Day, Every Word You Say, I'll Be Watching You

by Anthony Gregory, The Independent Institute
Jan. 10, 2012

The Department of Homeland Security has declared its intention to gather personal data on journalists or others who might use "traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed." I suppose that would include those of us at the Independent Institute who blog, tweet, and update Facebook.

New guidelines allow for a broader reach in collecting such personal information than before. Any reporter or broadcaster, from a Fox News anchor to a lowly little blogger angry at the government, could find himself ensnared by DHS’s newest arm of the surveillance state.

Almost seven years ago, it became known that the FBI was monitoring the ACLU and antiwar groups. The institutional paranoia extended to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, who even made sure to spy on those dangerous terrorists known as Quakers.

With Obama in charge we see the full power of the bipartisan surveillance state--an apparatus that sees any thorn in the side of the regime as a potential threat to national security. The DHS, in particular, has targeted both “rightwing extremists” and peace activists. And of course, everyday Americans are caught up in the dragnet of the NSA’s wiretapping program, itself a huge presidential power grab even compared to the very lax standards that existed under FISA and the Patriot Act.

On occasion, the feds’ surveillance activities have seemingly thwarted a nefarious plot--but much more often than not, these plots turn out to be contrived by the very infiltrators said to be shielding the public from harm. The FBI has an especially illustrious record in this regard. But DHS, a cabinet-level bureau that turned ten years old only months ago, will have plenty of opportunities to prove itself just as capable of “intelligence” gathering--if that’s how we wish to describe a department whose officials can’t even tell the difference between an African-American from Texas who can’t speak Spanish and an illegal immigrant from Colombia.

With the Fourth Amendment practically gone, perhaps we can finally declare the war on terror over? After all, if the terrorists hated us for our freedom, they must not hate us so much anymore.