Before the Law

Well, at least they're consistent

As we know, terrorists, would-be terrorists, could-be terrorists, and couldn't-possibly-be terrorists are even more likely to use the internet for their nefarious (and their innocent) schemes than they are to use the phone lines.  Hence the Bush Administration's latest plan to track them all down, each and every one, the guilty and the innocent, to their terrorist and non-terrorist lairs, in this new medium as well: 

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.  (NYT 6/2/06)

A DOJ spokesperson says that "[t]he Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures."  Somehow, given the Administration's recent record and stated position regarding its obligation to follow "existing laws and procedures" when it comes to invading Americans' right to privacy --  e.g., its claim to a constitutional right to conduct facially illegal wiretapping by the NSA -- I'm less than reassured.  Once these databanks are compiled, is there any doubt that the government (if not the DOJ then the NSA) will immediately begin to make use of them? 

But who will surveil the surveillants?

Apparently, they will.  True, it's not exactly the NSA scandal, but when "the very people asked to fight terrorism are claiming that the city's new antiterrorism tools have been bluntly and illegally applied to the exercise of their own civil rights," the comparisons become inviting.  And one has to look for one's poetic justice where one can find it these days . . . .  Having been on the wrong end of these cameras myself once upon a time (and having been involved in bringing this kind of lawsuit, too), I'm sympathetic to the police who are complaining about being photographed.  Good luck to them; courts have held for years that police surveillance, photographing and video-taping of public political demonstrations are perfectly fine under the First Amendment, no matter how much protestors complain about their right to dissent being chilled.  I assume that these cops will get the same bum's rush, but one never knows . . . .