US Spying Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known-What You Read-Who You Know-Where You Go (WAPO)

[kpete]

Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented
U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 22, 2007; A01



The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

..........

"The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society," said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested and then first revealed in Wired News. The government, he said, "may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. . . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102347_pf.html

[RC]

1. The biggest security risk of all is Homeland Security's obsession with gathering

this information in the first place. This has absolutely nothing to do with terrorist, National Security or keeping anyone safe. This is information our dictators will use to detain or disappear people they deem a threat.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

2. No one person or group of people should have that kind of power, ever. n/t

[kestrel91316]

7. .......or frame them for some imagined crime against the state.....

"....This is information our dictators will use to detain or disappear people they deem a threat....."

[quakerheart]

3. surveillance

I believe it was Jefferson who said "Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither."
I fear our government and the direction it is going more than terrorism.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

5. Indeed. Welcome to DU, quakerheart.

:hi:

[OnyxCollie]

6. Welcome to DU.

The quote was by Ben Franklin.

The (bush) government are acting like ideologically-motivated terrorists against the (Dem) government, with the public trapped in the middle.

[tbyg52]

13. Hi quakerheart!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

It was Franklin:

The Statue of Liberty, in New York harbour has a number of inscriptions on plaques in the stairwell to the pedestal, one of which is

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2005-November/079972.html

[Echo In Light]

4. This is only 'new' to those who...

Condemn others for lending any credence to crazy "conspiracy theories."

Seems to me such types are but a few short steps from the rightist mantra:
If you're not doing anything wrong, then what's the big deal?

[L. Coyote]

8. My Informant: ALL communications routed overseas to circumvent US laws and Constitution.

This is what I was told. It dovetails with the splitting of the main communication lines. Where are these routed. That question has not been answered. I was told they go to nation where US citizens are not protected by law, and EVERYONE can be spied on, all phone, all e-mail, all internet voice, everything going over the fiber optic network, EVERYTHING!

[rucky]

9. Whoever's assigned to me...

has the most boring job in the world.

[malaise]

10. I heard that on PBS last night

and sighed!! :cry:

[monmouth]

11. I googled my screen name with DU and many of my posts came up....lol.

This is a way they get info also...

[RC]

15. I don't have that problem.

You need to learn how to fade into the background and observe. Be stage hand, not the star.

[tuckessee]

12. Markus Wolf would be proud. n/t

[file83]

14. OMG - did you all read the last part?

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about "politically charged" opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, "they had them printed out on the table in front of me."

This absolutely sounds like East-Germany circa 1958. What country is this again? 'Cause this is NOT The United States of America.