Big Brother 2007

Increasing the power of government to track the lives of citizens raises the probability of abuse, intrusion into individual freedoms and setting the stage for fascism. That’s why civil liberty advocates are concerned about the Patriot Act. But, the Patriot Act is a far cry from the broad sweeping invasion planned by the Dutch.

The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future. Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, all citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database — including health, education, family and police records...

The Dutch claim that there is a safeguard in their system in that no single individual nor agency will have full access to the entire database. That is an empty promise. With a few strokes to a keyboard, any computer system firewall can be broached.

The Europeans stress equality, which is the philosophical basis for their socialistic systems. The U.S. stresses liberty. American civil libertarians are correct to be alert to any infringement of liberty. Unfortunately, total liberty facilitates Islamo-fascist designs to destroy our way of life. While our intelligence and law enforcement agencies need expanded tools to thwart the Islamo-fascist plans, we must be constantly vigilant to assure that we don’t give government too much power. U.S. needs to expand investigative tools are limited to averting threats. European tools are designed to advance socialism and have nothing to do with protecting itself from terrorism.