Below The Beltway

The downside of the anti-immigration ordinance passed by the Prince William County Board of Supervisors is starting to become apparent as the Examiner reports on the massive database that the county will be compiling:
Prince William County residents, legal and illegal, should prepare to be counted.
A controversial resolution passed unanimously by the Prince William board Tuesday [...]

I wrote yesterday at The Liberty Papers about the testimony former Department of Justice official James Comey gave about the efforts the Bush Administration made to do an end run around Attorney General John Ashcroft and other DOJ officials who were opposed to the President’s warrantless wiretap program.
Here’s the YouTube video of the testimony and [...]

Alan Simpson, a former Senator from Wyoming who once was a strong advocate of the military’s Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy, has a great column in today’s Washington Post explaining why he’s changed his mind.
There is alot to like about the column, but here’s the money quote:
Since 1993, I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing [...]

From today’s Washington Post comes what can only be called the best argument against the PATRIOT Act ever:
A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI’s use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.
The inspector general’s audit [...]

Today’s Washington Post profiles the way in which our daily lives are monitored by a host of seemingly innocuous devices:
The tracking of Kitty Bernard begins shortly after she wakes up. All through the 56-year-old real estate agent’s day, from walking in her building’s lobby to e-mailing friends and shopping and working, the watchful eye of [...]

If you have a relatively new cell phone, it most likely has some form of Global Positioning System (GPS) locator technology installed on it. On my LG-4650, there are two settings for the GPS feature — one broadcasts your position to anyone capable of reading it, the other makes it available “only” to 911 services [...]

If you live in Missouri, it appears that the answer may be yes.
The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones — without their knowledge or consent.
Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of [...]

New York is on the verge of a massive increase in surveillance in its subway system
New York’s subway and bus operator said on Tuesday it awarded a $212 million contract for surveillance cameras, motion detectors and other equipment to detect potential attacks against its stations, bridges and tunnels.
(…..)
Lockheed will install 1,000 cameras and 3,000 [...]

From Canada.com:
OTTAWA - The federal cabinet will review new legislation this fall that would give police and security agencies vast powers to begin surveillance of the Internet without court authority.
The new measures would allow law-enforcement agents to intercept personal e-mails, text messages and possibly even password-secure websites used for purchasing and financial transactions.
I’m not Canadian, [...]

Thanks to a new law signed by President Bush, states will be setting up databases monitoring what prescription drugs you take.
As always, the law is justified as part of the “war on drugs.” Since the government will soon be able to find out what prescription you, or I, happen to be taking at any given [...]