President Bill Clinton exploited the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to greatly expand its domestic political surveillance programs. The Columbine High School massacre became an excuse for America s public school students, teachers, counselors and administrators to turn on any child who didn't fit in. Clinton went on national television and urged students across the country to report any classmates who seemed anti-social. Hundreds if not thousands of students were suspended, expelled and even arrested for typical adolescent behavior, or for bringing something as innocuous as nail clippers to class. And if the people won't tattle, the government will monitor their every waking moment anyway.
Video cameras line the freeways.
Bank transactions are monitored. Even our computers are being used against us, collecting and sending personal information through private companies to federal law enforcement agencies. The ultimate symbol of this power is Echelon, a massive system of space age listening devices and supercomputers maintained by the U.S. government s top secret National Security Agency. Created over the course of the Cold War, Echelon is an information vacuum cleaner which can monitor virtually every phone call, e-mail, fax, radio transmission, television broadcast, and other form of electronic communication in the world today. Legal concepts such as the right to privacy are a joke to this computer-driving monitoring system which can eavesdrop on practically everyone at the same time.