Would Orwell Feel at Home?

The Orwellian vision of a "surveillance society," where the government peeks over everyone's shoulder and chances to hide are scant, is coming dangerously close to reality, according to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union this week.

The report, dubbed "Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society," examines the recent "explosion" of surveillance technologies and the comparable lack of legal measures to control them. It is available for download from the ACLU's site.

Raising Awareness

"Many people still do not grasp that Big Brother surveillance is no longer the stuff of books and movies," said Barry Steinhardt, ACLU technology and liberty program director, in a statement accompanying release of the study.

Steinhardt, who coauthored the report, added that legislation adopted since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have only weakened citizens' constitutional protections.

For example, he points to the government's Total Information Awareness program, which seeks to create databases of personal information the government could search in its fight against terrorism. The program has caught flak from some members of Congress, as well as civil liberties groups. But Steinhardt points out that even if the program is scaled down, it represents a disturbing trend toward privacy erosion.

From government watch lists to secret wiretaps, U.S. residents are increasingly becoming the subjects of government surveillance, the report warns. And perhaps the most disturbing part, according to the ACLU, is that these powers are going unchecked by legal "chains."

Action Urged

The good news is that the drift toward a surveillance society can be stopped if people give more weight to protecting their privacy, the report says.

The group suggests enacting comprehensive privacy laws, passing new laws for new technologies, and changing the terms of the debate so citizens see the bigger impact that new laws and technologies have on their freedoms.

"If we do not take steps to control and regulate surveillance to bring it into conformity with our values, we will find ourselves being tracked, analyzed, profiled, and flagged in our daily lives to a degree that we can scarcely imagine today," the report states.

The ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act for details on how the government has applied its broader new surveillance powers granted since the terrorist attacks. At least a partial response to the inquiry is expected this week.