WASHINGTON -- Last month's revelation that President Bush wants hundreds of millions of dollars to invent innovative ways to spy on Americans was greeted not with suspicion, but shoulder-shrugging indifference.
Save for a few battle-weary civil libertarians, not many people have been fretting about how cameras now monitor all downtown areas in Washington, or the unchecked spread of face-recognition cameras that spy on travelers in airports and sports fans in arenas.
Politicians have capitalized on this sentiment, turning license into law. Last week, the Virginia legislature rejected a bill that would have slapped limits on facecam systems in the state. The USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI and other agencies unprecedented monitoring powers, was approved by the U.S. Senate by an overwhelming 98-1 vote and by a 357-66 vote in the House.
In the six months since the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans may not have exactly embraced a surveillance society, but they appear to have grown to accept portions of it. A Zogby poll conducted last December says that 80 percent of respondents favored video monitoring on public places such as street corners.
Especially in the dark days after the Pentagon was hit, the White House targeted, the Capitol anthraxed, and the World Trade Center leveled, that public reaction was predictable. In national emergencies, the uneasy relationship between freedom and order edges toward greater restrictions on individual liberty.
But Bush's war on terror is not a traditional military conflict with a clear end that can be met after, say, U.S. soldiers capture a city, eliminate a Taliban command post -- or even snare Osama bin Laden himself. Bush and other top administration officials repeatedly have warned that the attempt to exterminate al-Qaida dens may continue for years, even decades. It conceivably could succeed the Cold War as the most important political struggle of the 21st century.
If that happens, new surveillance powers that police receive today likely will become permanent.
That's why some members of the "In Defense of Freedom" alliance that sprang up after Sept. 11 -- and includes libertarian, conservative, and liberal groups -- are alarmed.
"The danger here is really an institutional one -- projects, programs and politicians create a force of their own," says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "There's some of that going on, and that's the danger. It's a perfect storm: The combination of technology, federal funding, and law enforcement authority responding to the events of Sept. 11."
"Americans are not prepared to sacrifice their privacy and civil liberties after Sept. 11, although their political leaders are prepared to do so for them," Rotenberg says.
Call it the bureaucratization of surveillance. When Congress enacted the USA Patriot Act in November, politicians proclaimed proudly that some sections would expire in 2005.
Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said that a four-year expiration date "will be crucial in making sure that these new law enforcement powers are not abused." In the House, Bob Barr (R-Georgia) stressed that "we take very seriously the sunset provisions in this bill."
But the December 2005 expiration date embedded in the law applies only to a tiny part of the mammoth bill. Police will have the permanent ability to conduct Internet surveillance without a court order in some circumstances, secretly search homes and offices without notifying the owner, and share confidential grand jury information with the CIA. Also exempt from the expiration date are investigations underway by December 2005, and any future investigations of crimes that took place before that date.
There are some signs that as Sept. 11's shock fades, Americans are becoming more skeptical of government proposals that limit privacy and civil liberties.
A Zogby poll conducted last week found that 57 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed did not like the idea of agents opening U.S. mail at random. Seventy-four percent rejected the idea of police monitoring their telephone conversations.
That newfound libertarian sentiment seems strongest when it comes to a national ID card. EPIC's Rotenberg notes that while early polls immediately after Sept. 11 showed near-universal support for the idea, it now receives less than 50 percent approval.
That hasn't stopped state motor vehicle agencies from using the Sept. 11 attacks as justification for asking Congress to standardize the license, share more driver data between states and mandate techniques such as biometrics to "uniquely identify" each of America's 228 million drivers.
The group behind this legislative push is the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), which met last month to figure out how to talk Congress into handing them $100 million for the project.
The AAMVA's fans in Washington note that four of the five hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon had fraudulent identifications, while detractors argue that standardizing drivers' licenses is tantamount to a national ID card in all but name -- and un-American in any form.
"This is not about a national ID," says Jason King, AAMVA's public affairs manager. "The reality is that corporate America came to rely on (the driver's license) as something more. If people are going to use a driver's license for more, then we have a responsibility to create uniform standards."
While AAMVA opponents raise a slew of objections, including the fact that federal task forces concluded such a smartcard-license was unnecessary, the most chilling objection may be the idea of a gargantuan database that tracks and records any time you use your ID. If all states issued the smartcard-licenses, such detailed information about their use would become a gold mine for the IRS, police and direct marketers.
In addition to the AAMVA plan, Congress will also consider how much more money to devote to surveillance and research into new spy technologies.
Bush's proposed 2003 budget hands the Justice Department an increase of $1.8 billion to a total of $30.2 billion, not counting $539.2 million it already received as part of an emergency spending bill enacted after Sept. 11.
The FBI would receive $61.8 million and 201 more employees or contractors to support the agency's "surveillance capabilities to collect evidence and intelligence," the department said in a statement. That would allow the FBI to devote more resources than ever to controversial spy technologies like Carnivore, keyboard logging devices, and Magic Lantern.
Included in that figure is: $5.6 million to expand an unnamed FBI "data collection facility," $32 million and 194 positions devoted to intelligence and information gathering, $10.9 million for expanded electronic surveillance, $11.3 million for an "Electronic Surveillance Data Management System," and $2 million for the Special Operations Group's intelligence and surveillance operations. In addition, the FBI would receive $157.6 million to upgrade and enhance its computer systems.
