-Caveat Lector- http://news.com.com/2010-1071-975908.html?tag=fd_nc_1
Perspective: A tech tool for future tyrants? By Tom Giovanetti December 4, 2002, 4:00 AM PT A healthy distrust of government was a hallmark of this country's founding, and has protected us from much harm over the last 226 years. The founders may have disagreed about many things, but they all agreed that limited government power was a key to freedom. Distrust of central government power was among the primary reasons for the designs of both our system of separation of powers and our system of federalism. The founders distrusted government because they had firsthand experience with tyrants. They had seen that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Note the logical order in the phase. It isn't the corruption that comes first--it is power that comes first. When power is amassed and available, corruption comes as a result. So the trick is to limit power up-front--to prevent the amassing of too much power by any single person, or any single agency, or department, or government. Another famous quotation, "knowledge is power," adorns (in its Latin form) the logo of the Total Information Awareness project at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A visit to the TIA Web site will take your breath away. Its name, slogan and logo reek of Orwellian elements. In fact, the Web site looks like either a parody Web site, or every civil libertarian's nightmare. But it is not a parody. Nor is this a simple case of unwise choices of agency name and logo design. Rather, the name, logo, slogan and Web site contents are all a pretty accurate description of the intentions behind the TIA. Distrust of government has also been a hallmark of conservatism in the United States. Yet today, we have a conservative president and a Republican-controlled Congress advocating and defending a program that says it will amass a vast database of information on the American people. Even some conservative organizations are telling us that we have nothing to fear from the "total information" system. [...] To those who say that safeguards will be built into the system, I say that the government has a pretty poor track record of following such safeguards. To those who say it will be impossible to use the database to violate the privacy of citizens, well, it's just a matter of who is sitting at the console. Your privacy policy is only as good as your most disgruntled employee with access to your database. Yes, we are under a new threat of terrorism, and we must take steps to protect ourselves. But, in defending America, we should not betray our founding principles and turn America into the founders' worst nightmare. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om