Taking Liberties With Our Freedom. Law enforcement and big business were the big winners in the passage of the Homeland Security Act. Americans worried about the degradation of their civil liberties were not. A commentary by Lauren Weinstein. [Wired News]
"The fix is in." So said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of the mammoth new Homeland Security Act, which was signed into law last week.
McCain was upset about an array of goodies that were tacked onto the bill at the last minute by the House of Representatives. These included broad liability protections for makers of vaccines, and an array of other extremely valuable giveaways.
[...]
Among various alarming provisions, the law opens up enormous avenues for monitoring Internet communications, without even after-the-fact notifications. Virtually any government agency at any level can initiate surveillance on flimsy grounds. No subpoenas or court oversight are required.
Not to be left off the gravy train, big business also pushed through its own grab bag of perks in the new legislation.
One of the most egregious and potentially dangerous of these travesties is the Homeland Security Act's creation of new and very broad exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act.
Businesses now have a new way to evade liability for safety violations, hazards to consumers and other abuses. They need merely report the information about their behavior -- even totally unclassified activities -- to the federal government, and claim it's related to homeland security. In the parlance of the Homeland Security Act, they declare the data to be "CII," or Critical Infrastructure Information.
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