Privacy

Warrantless Surveillance Makes a Mockery of the Constitution

by John W. Whitehead April 25, 2024

Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference ... The Thought Police would get him just the same ... the arrests invariably happened at night ... In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name ...

The Never-Ending Federal Surveillance Crime Spree

by James Bovard March 26, 2024

Last December, one of the most intrusive provisions in the federal statute book was set to expire. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the National Security Agency to vacuum up trillions of emails and other data. A bevy of bipartisan members of Congress called for radically curtailing those nullifications of Americans’ privacy. But the effort to ...

Snowden and the Fight for American Privacy

by James Bovard May 1, 2023

Edward Snowden did heroic service in awakening Americans to Washington ravishing their privacy. Snowden’s “reward” is to be banished in Russia without a snowball’s chance in hell of a fair trial if he returns to America. But as he courageously declared, “I would rather be without a state than without a voice.” He explained why he leaked ...

Geofence Surveillance: First, They Spied on Protesters. Then Churches. You’re Next

by John W. Whitehead March 16, 2023

“I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”—Senator Frank Church on Meet ...

The Right to Be Let Alone: When the Government Wants to Know All Your Business

by John W. Whitehead March 10, 2023

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”—Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis There was a time when the census was just a head count. That is no longer the case. The American Community Survey (ACS), sent to about 3.5 million homes every year, is the byproduct of a government that ...

The Genetic Panopticon

by John W. Whitehead July 28, 2022

“Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches… Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… Perhaps ...

Digital Authoritarianism: AI Surveillance Signals the Death of Privacy

by John W. Whitehead July 21, 2022

“There are no private lives. This a most important aspect of modern life. One of the biggest transformations we have seen in our society is the diminution of the sphere of the private. We must reasonably now all regard the fact that there are no secrets and nothing is private. Everything is public.” ― Philip K. Dick Nothing is private. We ...

Republicans Miss the Real Issue Regarding TSA Scanners

by Laurence M. Vance April 15, 2022

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is back in the news again, and, as usual, it is not because the agency did something noteworthy. The TSA was established by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (S.1447) that was passed by the 107th Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001. No Republicans ...

The Iron-Fisted Authoritarianism of the Surveillance State

by John W. Whitehead May 30, 2019

“There will come a time when it isn't ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.’” ― Philip K. Dick Red pill or blue pill? You decide. Twenty years after the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist ...

The Age of No Privacy: The Surveillance State Shifts Into High Gear

by John W. Whitehead June 28, 2017

We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government. ― William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice, dissenting in Osborn v. United States 385 U.S. 341 (1966) The government has become an expert in finding ways to sidestep what it considers ...

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

by John W. Whitehead June 1, 2016

“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.” — Admiral Ben Moreell (1892 – ...

Saint or Sinner, Government Eyes Are Watching Every Move You Make

by John W. Whitehead April 20, 2016

“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals. This dynamic - the hallmark of a healthy and free society - has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything ...