Whos afraid of Big Brother?

While I think that it is hyperbole to claim that this story from 1999 is an endorsement of ECHELON, the NSA's monitoring system that has got Democrats and some Republicans so upset, it does illustrate that the Clinton administration made the same arguments in support of this surveillance as the Bush administration is making today:

Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency provide a detailed report to Congress explaining what legal standards they use to monitor the conversations, transmissions and activities of American citizens.. . .

The report, entitled "Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information", was published on May 10 and provides a detailed account of Echelon and other intelligence monitoring systems.. . .

The stations collectively monitor millions of voice and data messages each day. These messages are then scanned and checked against certain key criteria held in a computer system called the "Dictionary." In the case of voice communications, the criteria could include a suspected criminal's telephone number; with respect to data communications, the messages might be scanned for certain keywords, like "bomb" or "drugs." The report also alleges that Echelon is capable of monitoring terrestrial Internet traffic through interception nodes placed on deep-sea communications cables.. . .

While few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists, many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.. . .

What interests me about the story is that it documents that Congress was informed about the program, and that it basically acquiesced. Bob Barr, who most liberals would classify as a right wing radical, was concerned about the programs potential for spying on Americans. It thus appears that Republicans were among the first to express concern about this issue.

Ultimately, we have to accept the fact that such surveillance is warranted, and trust those we elect to protect us. The hysterical reaction is to compare it to Orwell's 1984, but I have to think that being scanned by a computer program is hardly the same thing as being monitored by people. Some items may be actually reviewed by human beings, but to portray these as jackbooted thugs dedicated to the destruction of democracy is way, way off. It's a product of the overheated rhetoric from radicals on both sides of the poltical spectrum. There may be some dark characters around who would abuse such power, but I have a hard time believing that such a sinister operation could exist in this time of rampant linking, as the current kerfuffle demonstrates.