While the TimesUK ran a piece on 'Big Brother', a huge database on the British public, Radar magazine reported on a wide Bush spying initiative called Main Core. "The Last Roundup" described "the program." According to a senior government official…”There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” … One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention. The article also stated:
"... it’s rare to hear a voice like that of Senator Frank Church, who in the 1970s led the explosive investigations into U.S. domestic intelligence crimes that prompted the very reforms now being eroded. “The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny,” Church pointed out in 1975. “And there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.”
Combine this statement with the recent announcement of the sale of Booz, Allen & Hamilton’s government consulting and intelligence services division to the infamous Carlyle Group. What would a Frank Church say about that development? My guess is he'd opine, "Welcome to the government industrial monstrosity. Smile, you're on Bush's candid camera."
"... it’s rare to hear a voice like that of Senator Frank Church, who in the 1970s led the explosive investigations into U.S. domestic intelligence crimes that prompted the very reforms now being eroded. “The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny,” Church pointed out in 1975. “And there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.”
Combine this statement with the recent announcement of the sale of Booz, Allen & Hamilton’s government consulting and intelligence services division to the infamous Carlyle Group. What would a Frank Church say about that development? My guess is he'd opine, "Welcome to the government industrial monstrosity. Smile, you're on Bush's candid camera."
