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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (48361)	5/12/2006 12:38:40 PM
From: Jim S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Laz, I hope you don't mind me butting into the conversation. To me, the problem isn't any one thing the gov't is doing to put personal info into a database, it's the compendium of all those things. I'm sure you know that emails are being collected, and ISPs are forced to turn over their records with no notification to the customer. The Patriot Act (what a misnomer THAT is!) also forces financial institutions to give them detailed information about an individual or group of individuals without a warrant or notification to the customer. Combine all of this in massive numbers, and some GS-3 secretary in DC has some pretty comprehensive "profile" information about a LOT of citizens. What COULD happen, is a "desktop detective" could find that you made some phone calls, moved some money around, have a car matching a description, and bought gas and groceries at the exact time some crime was committed, making you a suspect for that crime. All resulting from info on the database. I don't trust the gov't to use personal information responsibly. Has there ever been a governmental power that wasn't abused? Even if this administration doesn't abuse the powers it has grabbed, what about the next one? Or the one after that? Will these powers end here, or are these just the next step in the data-gathering process? My criteria for any new governmental powers is, "what would Hitler have done with this power?"